


The Blood That Makes Us Human

by teicakes



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Blood, Demon Hunters, Fantasy, Inspired by Bloodborne, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Monster Hunters, Slow Burn, Swordfighting, Vampire Shiro (Voltron), semi-graphic descriptions of monsters and fighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 02:00:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21959572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teicakes/pseuds/teicakes
Summary: Keith's desperate. His father's sick, his mother long gone. His one hope to keep what's left of his family alive is to travel to the one place his father swore he'd never return to again: Yharnam. A city famous for their miracle medical practices and blood-based cures.  But in his search for a cure for his father, Keith's about to learn of Yharnam's dark secrets, the curse that plagues its citizens, and the past of the man who takes him under his wing.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 74





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [subchesters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/subchesters/gifts).



> Heyo! Merry Christmas to everyone and some especially happy holidays to Jess! I wanted to take a crack at mashing up your request for a Bloodborne AU with the vampire AU idea as well. It's changed a lot since it's first inception (and a lot of hours on the wiki/game summary blogs), but hopefully it's something that rings true to the series while still being its own thing c:
> 
> I'll be posting a chapter a day (unless family stuff keeps me from it) until New Years, so stay tuned for more!

_ Closed. Back in morning _ . 

Keith squints at the hastily scrawled sign on the pub door, the best in town according to his old man, then up at the sky. He can still see the pink fingers of sunlight streaking across it as the sun sets, clouds cast in vivid shades of reds and oranges. It’s barely supper time, let alone when a pub  _ should _ close, and yet…  _ this.  _ Something his father certainly didn’t mention when he’d told him he was setting out for Yharnam. 

Same with the fact that  _ apparently _ the inn also closed early. Or was closed entirely on Sundays. Unlike any other town he’d ever visited before. 

He eyes the massive cathedral jutting out of the hillside in the distance, stain glass tinted red and gold in the dying light. The Healing Church  _ was  _ the landmark of the city. The citizens lived for the church… it’s rituals were known throughout the lands… sought out for countless reasons. There were countless rumoured secrets… rituals and traditions kept to the Yharnamites and no one else, a group of people who lived far longer… far healthier than any other township in the lands. 

Keith’s grip tightens on his father’s blade. 

It was fine. Just because a few of his father’s old hunter haunts were closed today didn’t mean he needed to get out of sorts. There were bound to be strange habits in a town as steeped in mystery and magic as this one. He still had plenty of time to find a place to bunk for the night, and if he had to resort to a barn or stable, well… that was what he’d resort to. 

The only matter was finding  _ something _ .

There was almost no one on the streets now, save for a few villagers scurrying around, the last of shopping or laundry tucked in baskets held between bone-white fists. Every shop on the high street was closed, shutters locked, lamps dim. It reminded him of a twisted version of Christmas Eve, the arteries of the town running dry with people as everyone sought the warmth and comfort of home. 

“Excuse me…” Keith steps towards a woman, baby in her arms and bale of straw on her back. “Do you happen to know-” but he can’t get further than thay before she’s hurrying away, eyeing him warily over her shoulder as she darts into the shadows of a nearby alleyway. 

“Rude…” he mumbles, searching the rest of the square. There’s a man at the water pump filling buckets, balding head glistening with exertion in the late sun as his aged arms work the spigot. 

“Hi there…” he approaches cautiously, hiking his pack further up onto his shoulders. “I just arrived in town and I’m looking for a place to stay for the night and everything seems to be closed. You wouldn’t happen to know someplace I could go for a bite, do you?”

The man stops pumping water long enough to look at Keith. His nose is crooked, thick strands of hair sprouting from it and his leathered ears. He sneers as he takes in Keith’s appearance, though Keith’s not entirely sure why. Sure… he isn’t exactly dressed like a local. He’s got a worn vest buttoned down over his travel-stained blouse and mud-flecked pants and boots, but nothing’s out of the ordinary there. Maybe it’s his knife, strapped to his thigh, or his father’s old bowblade on his shoulder. Nothing particularly fancy, but in a town well known for housing hunters he’d figured weapons like these would get less looks. 

“You’re a hunter, ain’t ye?” the man grumbles, pointing an accusing finger at the coat Keith’s wearing. It’s his dad’s, like many of his possessions now, worn and black and shin length on him, still with the faintest traces of the comforting smells of home. 

“Yes. No…  _ technically, _ ” Keith waffles. He’d been trained to fight since he was eight, learned countless combat styles and weapons big and small, but a  _ hunter? _ He’d never killed anything besides a stump dummy and deer for meat. “I’m still new to it, my old man was the real Hunter, he’s the one that taught me everything.”

“Well, then ‘ye know where you’d best be going now,” the man snorts, heaving a bucket onto the rig atop his shoulders. “S’a full moon tonight, all the others are assembled now and you’re here flapping your jaw like a cod in a canning factory.”

“Wait! You’re kidding, right?” Keith makes to help the old man with his other bucket but he’s slapped away with a grizzled hand. 

“Yer kind don’t kid with me sonny, why in blue blazes would you think I’m kidding with you? Go on… get! Judging by your scrawny frame you’re better off in their fabulous  _ dream _ then out on the hunt tonight.”

“Hunt?” Keith stoops down again, more cautiously this time, only to be nearly clocked with a swinging bucket. “I don’t… I just got here. I wasn’t planning to join any hunt, I’m looking for a blood minister. Maybe you know one. My dad-”

A finger’s thrust threateningly into his face. “Do I look like someone who’s best friends with a blood minister? No. Then let me be to head back to mine, while ye head back to yours.”

Keith’s getting angry now. He’d tried to be nice, had been nothing but manners and approachable but this old guy was grinding on his nerves from all sides. He’s tired, he’s hungry, he just wants a warm place to put his feet up and rest for a few hours and  _ this _ is the welcoming he gets. “But I don’t have a place here! I just got here!”

“Not my problem,” the man mutters, hobbling down the street away from him. “Damned fresh meat… coming here, assuming everything…” He stops and gives Keith one last withering look, broken only for a second as he hefts his load higher on his shoulders. 

“If you know what’s best for ye, you should be getting on!” 

“I just told you! I-” but Keith’s yelling at air, the old man disappeared into the encroaching dark of post-twilight.

“Fuck.”

He boots a loose cobblestone across the square, watching it skip across its brethren and tumble off into the shadows. 

He’s no closer to any place to stay, let alone a blood minister. He figured the first’d come easy, but at this rate, he might as well sweep the streets looking for the second. Who knew? Maybe he’d find one before any remotely friendly townsperson. Keith mentally curses himself for not seeking out a map of Yharnam before getting here. There’s no doubt a labyrinthian network of alleys and side streets here, he’ll probably spend a good couple of hours wandering them looking for some place to crash. 

Keith groans, eyeing the pump beside him. Well, no point in going thirsty if he’s already going hungry tonight. It takes a few attempts to figure it out, but eventually he’s got water flowing. It’s clear and absolutely frigid, and a cupped hand tells him all he needs to know. Sweet and crisp, no trace of the tang of lead or filth. At least it’s one small fortune for the night. 

He’s in the process of pulling his canteen out of his pack when a shadow crosses over him. Keith stops, ready to encounter another Yharnamite about to scold him for not knowing the rules or status quo. Probably going to tell him hunters have to use the hunter taps. He’s already got the eye roll wound up, the polite neutral face ready, but stops as soon as he stands. 

It’s not a Yharnamite. 

It’s a hunter. 

A man, older than his dad but still far from frailty, scruffy face shadowed with a worn hat. His coat and scarf are similarly dog-eared, shabby around the edges and faded with time, and everything about him gives off the musty odor of wet dog and unkept stables. Honestly… Keith’d swear this guy was a bum, if not for the weapon strapped to his back. A massive axe, rusty on the sides, but blade polished clean and sharp. Keith can just spy the handle of a blunderbluss sticking out by his waist, almost sparklingly new compared to the rest of him. There’s no question in his mind this man knows how to use them. Best not to get on his wrong side. 

He skirts over, leaving a clear path to the pump, waiting for the guy’s next move. Judging by his appearance, probably a grunt and a heavy pump filled silence. Except the guy doesn’t just fill up and leave like everyone in this town seems to do. He tips up the brim of his hat and laughs. 

“Looks to me like you’re not from around here.” The man’s got a deep, gravely voice, rounded at the edges. “Fresh blood I’m guessing?”

Keith blinks at him, then at his bag. The man chuckles again. 

“Right, right, what am I saying? Of course you are! Not many folks from around here truck around with a pack like that. I suppose you’re here for the hunt? Seems like you have some weapons in order, looks to me all you need to do is drop your stuff off before it begins.”

“D-drop?” All this friendliness is throwing Keith for a loop after the townsfolk from before. “You mean like… there’s actually a place that’s open?”

That catches him. “Of course,” he frowns. “You  _ do  _ know about the dream, don’t you?”

“No…” Keith sighs, packing his bag back up. “This is my first time in Yharnam, I don’t know much at all, other than apparently Siggie’s has good mushroom and kidney pie and that there’s blood ministers galore here. Some old guy mentioned it earlier but…” he shrugs, gesturing at the empty square, “you can see how helpful that was.”

“But you are a hunter, aren’t you?”

Keith bites his tongue.  _ Technically _ , he wasn’t. Technically, he’d never been on a true hunt before, let alone shoot one of his father’s special bullets or made his bowblade shift from form to form. His training had stopped at fighting and defence, nothing more. Never once had his dad taken him with him for a hunt that wasn’t wild foul or venison, let alone show him the bounty of one. All he’d ever seen or heard were the stories of late nights in taverns with friends and the coins and bread he brought home. But still… judging by this guy’s tone, he was one wrong answer away from sleeping in the gutters or going back to whatever secret hideout hunters had. 

And Keith was sick of gutters. 

“I’m… new,” he says after a beat. Might as well stick to the facts while skirting certain truths. “Haven’t taken part in a hunt here before, not really sure my way around the town. I know there should be a place I can go but so far I’ve struck out where I’ve looked.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” A too-strong hand claps Keith on the shoulder, swinging him around without a second to breathe. “These streets can be tricky when you’re first starting out, sometimes you can swear you took a right turn and be looking around for the lantern for ages. No need to worry though, it comes with practice. I’ll get you to the Dream no problems, and if you’d like tonight you can tag along with me.”

“Th-thanks…” he stammers at the stranger now ushering him off down an alley. The last traces of sunlight are fading away now, leaving only the shuttered lamplight of houses to guide their way. “I’m guessing you’re a hunter too then?”

The man laughs again, a great lion’s roar of a chuckle. “Where are my manners? Completely forgot to introduce myself. The name’s Macidus, Father Macidus, though just father or Macidus is fine. Daddy’s for little ones and the missus only, so don’t you go using it. And what about you?”

“Uh… Keith,” he says, trying to forget all mention of  _ that _ from his brain.

“Keith, eh? Good strong name. Hunter’s name. Blood run in the family I presume?” Macidus grins at him as he steps over a puddle. 

“Yeah… both my parents were hunters.”

“Well well well… you don’t hear about that every day. Suppose they met together during a hunt. Nothing quite like it really… that adrenaline you get when you first spot them. I’ll bet your Ma was head over heals at first sight when she saw your old man take down a beast in front of her. Bet she’s a looker herself too.”

_ More like dad falling for  _ **_her_ ** _ on first sight _ , Keith smiles. He’d always liked hearing that story again and again, his mother launching herself into the fray out of nowhere, blade flashing, hair dancing around her face as she took his father’s kill from him with a wink and a grin. From there it had been his dad doing everything he could to keep up with her, hunt by her side, travel together, and eventually… so much more. 

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Me and the missus, well, suppose it’s a little different than your folks. She’s just a regular civilian, but when I saved her from that boar, well… you could say that was the end of that. Can’t blame them though… a man’s most attractive when he’s in battle.” Macidus strokes his stubble. “Fuck… gotta love that feeling, am I right Keith?”

“Uh…” he stumbles over a loose paving stone, “sure?”

“Oh son…” the hunter chuckles, “you’re fresher than I thought. Nothing beats that rush when you face off against a beast. That look in their eye when they first spot you… the moment they charge and your blood boils in wait for the perfect moment… the swing of your axe and the catch of the blade through flesh and blood. Nothing like it in this world, when it’s just you versus a beast. Better than sparing with a mate, better than the rush of gambling.” He sucks in a deep breath. “If we’re being honest… Better than sex. You’ll learn it soon enough.”

Keith can only nod as he weaves through boxes behind Macidus. Had… had his parents felt this way about it too? He knew his dad always missed parts of the job, the friends and the stories, but he’d barely heard mention of bloodshed ever. It wasn’t exactly something to tell a six year old though, that was for certain. Maybe Macidus was the exception, or maybe his dad was. After all… his mother had returned to the hunt. 

_ Mom… _

His memories of her are blurred around the edges, but he can still remember her face… her hands… her smell. The kind tilt to her eyes when she smiled, the blue-red tint to her dark hair in the morning light, always draped over one shoulder. Bits and pieces of mirror, reflecting the past. From what he knew she’d stopped in Yharnam sometime after she left, the few letters in her smooth, looping writing alluding to as much as that, but beyond that… nothing. Like smoke in the wind, her traces were wispy, barely there. 

It hits him suddenly, that there’s a chance, no matter how slim, that Father Macidus may know her. May have met her, even in passing, or someone else the hunter associates with. He’s about to ask, to see if Macidus’s ever seen a female hunter who wields a lance better than anyone else, but he’s stopped. The words on Keith’s lips are gone, vanished by the sight of a mannequin in a pawn shop window. Or at least, the broach on its breast. 

A naggingly familiar broach.

It’s simple, a smooth, bright red gem embedded in a network of finely embellished silver coiling around the stone like brambles around brick. A blood-red egg nestled atop a too-small nest, waiting for its mother to return. The sight of it has fuzzy, fever-blurred memories of it bubbling to the surface, of small hands reaching up to where it’s pinned at her slender throat sparkling just above his head, just out of reach. Unbidden, the scent of orange and cinnamon come to him, faint, but unmistakable, so much he swears it’s with him now. 

_ Mom. _

It can’t be… but...

He steps forwards, blinks, but as soon as it came, that memory, those smells retreat. He’s left staring at the gloom of the window display, the broach nothing more than another knickknack among dozens that litter the tiny sill. It could have belonged to anyone… could just be a dime-a-dozen keepsake, but he can’t quite shake it.The fleeting feeling of something lost, just out of reach.

_ Fuck.  _

Keith spins around in the empty alley. Macidus had been right in front of him, but now there wasn’t even a trace of the old coot, not even a whiff of his moldering clothes.  _ He couldn’t have gone far, could he? _ He’d promised to take Keith to wherever it was hunters gathered together, and it’s wasn’t like he’d given off the vibe of someone who’d gleefully drop a stranger in the middle of nowhere and watch them spin their wheels finding their way out.  _ No… _ he had to be nearby, down one of these turns somewhere.

He takes off at a trot, feeling far more uneasy than he had moments ago. He pats his side to make sure his knife’s there… just in case. Macidus would be just down this alleyway… or the next one… or the next…

Keith keeps stalking down the dark cobbles, hair on the back of his neck standing on end with each passing archway or passage that reveals to be empty. He counts six before coming to the bend in the alley.  _ Six _ . Surely Macidus would have stopped and waited for him before now. He’s about ready to backtrack, check to make sure he hadn’t missed him down the last alley he’d passed, when he sees it. 

Two figures, huddled in the shadow of an alcove. Macidus’s hat on the cobblestones before them. 

Keith stalks closer, hand on the handle of his dagger. Father Macidus… he’s in the shadow of someone else, smaller than him, but not short by any means. He can just catch a tangle of dark hair over the collar of their coat, the shape of a hand on the side of the father’s face, the father’s fist bunched in the suede of the person’s jacket. There’s a wet smacking sound, and Keith’s stomach lurches for a second knowing this isn’t something he should be walking in on. He’s pretty sure what’s going on, and whether it’s Macidus’s wife or not, he shouldn’t be here. Not until they’re done, blissfully unaware of accidental eyes.

Except that as Keith steps back, his foot brushes an old bottle, the glass tinkling over the uneven ground. Both figures stiffen, and with a lurch of his stomach, Keith comes face to face with the kissing Father Macidus. 

The man kissing Father Macidus. The man dressed in a coat trimmed in embroidery as silver as his buckles and as impeccable as Macidus’s was shabby. The man with a massive gauntlet over his right arm covered in spirals of indecipherable writing and rust. The man with a shock of white bangs jutting forth from his head of jet-black hair, scar striping across his face. 

A man staring at Keith like a wolf in the woods, red dripping from his lips. 

Steel grey eyes locked to Keith’s, he spits. There’s no mistaking the liquid that hits the ground. 

_ Blood _ .

“You didn’t mention you had company Macidus.” The man’s voice is as smooth as it is deadly, a sword’s edge held to both Keith’s and Father Macidus’s throats. “Didn’t even smell him over your beastly stench.” 

Behind him, Father Macidus lets out a wet gurgle. 

Keith’s drawn his blade in a flash, knife pointed straight at the stranger’s heart.

The man’s brows quirk up at that. “A hunter too eh? Even though he’s pretty young by the looks of it, wouldn’t think you to be the type to be dragging someone his age into your acts but hey...” he shoves Macidus against the door and strips his axe from his shoulders, “can’t say I’m surprised. You always have toed the line between man and animal.”

“Stop that!” Keith snaps, skirting against the opposing wall warily. The guy now has two weapons, three if he counts the pistol on his hip. “Let him go. What the hell did he do to you?”

Red lips twist into a frown. “It’s not what he’s done  _ to me _ , it’s what he’s  _ going  _ to do. What he’s going to do to you and anyone in Yharnam if left the way he is. I’m surprised you can’t tell, he positively  _ reeks _ of it. Us hunters know it’s always just a matter of time.”

“ _ You’re _ a hunter?” This was bad. This was so bad. He’s clearly caught in some type of hunter turf war, maybe rivaling factions clashing. 

“Just like you. Which means you know  _ why _ I have to do this, just like he does. It’s all part of the job, making sure the streets stay safe and clean. Just because he’s your friend doesn’t make him an exception to the rules.”

“What rules? You just attacked him in the middle of an alley! You… you bit him! Who the fuck does that?”

The man chuckles. It’s dark, like ripples on a moonless pond, a weighty anchor pulling their maker deep, a clown laughing at his own foolery. “You’re better off not knowing. If I were you, I’d go back with the rest of the hunt. This isn’t going to be pretty.”

“No.”

Keith draws his sword. It’s heavy, uneven in his hands beside his dagger, but he holds steady, hoping his bluff holds. He’s not sure he can take this guy, but he’s dang well going to stop what the fuck he  _ thinks _ is about to happen. 

“You’re not killing him.”

The man releases his grip on Father Macidus’s neck, brows furrowed as he turns on Keith. He’s not so much angry as much as he seems… frustrated. “You’re not going to stop me. I’m doing this. For the greater good!”

“ _ How the fuck is that for the greater good?!” _

“And how the fuck are you not hearing me?! How are you not noticing what he is? Your friend, Father Macidus? There’s no saving him, he’s too far gone. You want me to leave him be? You want me to let him stalk the streets until it’s too late? Until he kills some innocent mother or baby?”

“You’re wrong!” Keith shouts, but his voice warbles.  _ What… what was this guy talking about? _ Macidus… Macidus wouldn’t… he wouldn’t kill someone like that. He was a good man. A kind one. The first person in this stupid town who’d shown something like interest in him. How… how was that wrong?

The man looks at him, and for the first time Keith feels that steeled mask slip. For a second there’s no sharpness, no edges, just a look of guilt and pity. 

“You’re new, aren’t you?” It’s phrased like a question, but there’s no mistaking he knows it as truth. Keith’s stance wavers, just as the stranger drops Macidus’s axe with a clang. “So you haven’t seen one then. I bet you don’t even-” but he bites his tongue, eyes skirting over to Macidus, still slumped over in the shadows. 

“Better you learn now than too late.”

“What are y-”

The man throws Father Macidus at Keith’s feet. 

At least, what he  _ thought _ was Father Macidus. 

Gone are the crows feet and silver wisps of beard, gone are the kindly old eyes and beaked nose. The person…  _ thing _ in front of him… it’s not human. It’s a monster. Empty eyesockets blurred into a smooth, alien mask of a face, all features erased, retracted save for one. The mouth, a gaping, horrible mouth, filled with mouldering teeth as disgusting as it’s fingers and nails. It can’t be him, except it  _ is _ . It’s the exact same jacket, exact same boots.  _ The same stench. _

Keith backs away as it advances, gaping maw dripping with saliva and stench. He can smell it… that same smell Father Macidus had, only a hundred times worse, blood and rot and death and decay, all leeching from it’s mouth and body. There’s no mind there, no human, only something carnal, something wrong, something…  _ beastly _ . 

He tries to move his arms but can’t. He’s frozen, trapped against the wall as the husk of Macidus stalks towards him, rotting teeth gnashing in something like carnal delight. He knows he needs to move, to swing his sword, to run, but he can’t tear his eyes away from the  _ thing _ advancing on him, the thing he’d sworn was human, the thing that’s now staring at him like nothing more than a gorey hunk of meat. 

And with a bang, it stops, bullet hole through the back of it’s skull. 

The stranger’s gun is drawn, smoke wafting from the barrel. He strides forwards and with a single swing of Macidus’s axe, cleaves the head from the body, ending its last twitches of life before Keith’s very eyes. 

It’s then, the beast bleeding out at his feet, that Keith’s body gives out. His brain stops functioning, limbs giving up all effort. All he remembers is the rush of pavement towards his face and a too-distant shout as the world goes black.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New day new chapter (: Happy Boxing Day everyone!

It’s cold… a damp, foggy chill that settles deep in the bones and makes Keith shiver. Distantly… distantly he can feel the farway warmth of a fire, a lamppost, but its not enough. His body’s damp, covered in cold sweat. Even though the weak warmth grows closer, even as light flickers at the edges of his eyelids, he still feels the chill wrap around him with arms that won’t let go. 

And then it’s gone. All in a rush, leaving Keith floating in no man’s land, body heavy against some type of stone. There’s the flickers of fire near him somewhere, but no heat. He tries to get up, to move towards the light, only to be stopped. Something’s pressed against his lips, something warm and with the burning scald of alcohol, and Keith sputters. It’s pushed against his lips again, this time more insistent, and this time Keith finds his ability to move his limbs once more. 

Everything’s blurry, unfocused for a moment, almost like a dream. He can just make out the shadow of someone beside him, kind fingers stroking through his hair… maybe… maybe even  _ that _ smell… a smell he hasn’t smelt in years. But the cup is pressed to his lips again, Keith’s forced to drink and gag, and the feeling’s gone, replaced with the burn of brandy down his throat and the sting of booze in the corners of his eyes. 

“What the… stop!” he grunts, throwing the hand back. The booze stings sliding down but it feels good, settling, his body more present as he shakes the final dregs of unconsciousness from it. 

When he opens his eyes again, it’s to a familiar unfamiliar face.

It’s the hunter, the messed up one with blood around his mouth and the scar across his nose, now cleaned up and staring down at him, flask of drink in hand. Up close like this, he can see how streaks of white fade to black in his bangs and how his eyes glitter like black pearls, sharp as the weapon strapped to his back.

_ “No no no …”  _ Keith backpedals away from him, expecting to hit the alley wall, only to tumble into dirt and leaves. 

_ Flowers. White flowers.  _ In beds everywhere around him, dimly lit and wrapped in mist. No street signs. No houses. Not even the distant form of the cathedral in the distance. Just the moon, hanging low and full in the sky, on this hilltop seemingly away from everything else in Yharnam. 

“I know this is probably a lot right now, but it’s okay.” The hunter moves in his crouch towards Keith, hand outstretched like he’s a wild animal. “You’re safe here. There’s no beasts, no fighting. You can rest up and recover and-”

_ “What the fuck? _ ” Keith kicks a clod of dirt at the guy. “You… you  _ kidnapped me? _ You killed a guy, sicced some monster-like…  _ thing _ on me! And then you’re telling me it’s all okay?”

“I… I didn’t!” His face pulls into a frown, then a deflating sigh. “Okay, maybe it  _ looks _ like that, but trust me! It was all for the greater good. You’re a whole lot safer here than you were out on the streets. It’s a blood moon tonight, only experienced hunters should be out on the streets right now. Are you…” his eyes flick up to Keith’s sword, still strapped on his back, and back to Keith. “Are you  _ sure _ you know what you’re doing? Because right now it really doesn’t look like you know the first thing about hunting at all.”

Keith draws his limbs in closer to himself. “Do I have to answer you?” he glares.

“No… you don’t,” the guy frowns, moving to sit cross legged across from him. “But it  _ would _ make it a little more clear why someone wearing a hunter’s coat and carrying a weapon like that doesn’t know the first thing about recognizing a beast.”

“Like  _ what _ ?” 

The man points. “ _ That.  _ Your bow blade. Not many hunters can pull something like that off. It takes a lot of skill and training to even be able to wield one in both forms, and a lot of hunts to get the right kind of experience. Even I’m not sure I could pull something like that off, and I’m pretty sure, judging by your looks, I’ve been hunting a whole lot longer than you have. Not that I’m saying you don’t hunt,” he adds quickly, hands flying up in defense. “Just… you don’t exactly add up.”

Keith glares suspiciously at him. The guy chuckles,  _ actually laughs _ , a sweet ringing sound so much less intimidating than the one he’d heard earlier, and shucks off his gauntlet.

“The name’s Shiro,” he says, extending his hand. “Born and bred Yharnam hunter. How about you?”

Keith eyes it warily. It’s covered in bandages, and what parts aren’t are littered with cobwebs of scars both new and old. 

“Keith,” he says, shaking it cooly. Shiro’s palm is warm and calloused on his own, with a bear’s grip just like his dad’s. “Not from here.”

“Ahh…’ Shiro sits back. “That sort of explains it then. You’re a new hunter. Or just relatively inexperienced? Or…” he bites his lip as Keith wraps an arm tighter around his knees. “You... are a hunter, right? You’re not just someone who met one on the road and someh-”

“I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Shiro’s mouth bobs open at Keith’s death glare.

“They’re my dad’s.” He drops each word with the weight of a stone. “He’s a hunter. Both my parents were, so before you go thinking this isn’t mine, you should check yourself.”

“Ah…” Shiro mumbles, finger scratching the dirt. “I… I’m sorry. It’s just… most hunter families here fight together. I suppose if you’re from out of town there might be different customs, maybe you’re supposed to prove yourself on your own. Still… them throwing you in here unaware, not even knowing what beasts can be like...”

“They didn’t throw me in here. I came myself.”

_ “To hunt?” _

“No, to dance ballet and make pies, what do you think?” Keith gives Shiro another look that could kill as the hunter eyes him up again. “Look. I don’t have to tell you anything I don’t want to, but you owe me some answers. What is this place? Why the hell did you bring me here? And what the fuck did you do to Father Macidus?!”

Shiro bites his tongue, giving Keith one more of those looks like he’s an injured puppy. 

“And stop looking at me like that. It’s pissing me off.” He hates being pitied. It’s happened since he was four, school kids whispering and staring at him from their mother’s skirts. He’s had enough to last a lifetime.

Shiro groans and shucks off his own pack, making a pointed effort not to make eye contact with him again. “That’s fair. From what I can tell, you don’t know much about Yharnam and how things work around here. I guess it’s the least I can do considering what happened. Bread?”

He extends a hunk of loaf, mostly crust, but Keith’s empty stomach doesn’t care. As much as he’d like to refuse it, the noisy growl it lets out gives him away. He takes it carefully, eyeing it up for anything suspect, but it seems fine. One tentative bite is all he needs to know. It’s good, a little stale, but perfectly edible. 

“You’re not eating?” he asks, eyeing Shiro’s empty hands. 

“Nah… I already… well, I kind of ate earlier.”

“Kind of?”

“Do you want me to explain Yharnam to you, or would you rather interrogate me on my eating habits?”

“Fine,  _ fine… _ ” Keith rolls his eyes and takes another bite. “So… this place. Dish.”

Shiro sits up a little straighter. “Okay… this might sound a little far fetched, but hear me out.”

“I’m hearing you.”

Shiro blows a little puff of his bangs out of his face. “I know you are, but chances are I’m probably going to have to show you too. Most people don’t accept Yharnam’s level of magic right away.”

Keith raises an eyebrow, but lets him continue. 

”We’re in the Hunter’s Dream. It’s sort of like another place… or reality… slapped beside our own. Hunters use it to rest and recuperate after fights, train up, enhance our weapons… basically anything you’d want to do in peace. No one’s really sure how it first came to be, but a long time ago some of the early hunters realized they could travel here by lighting certain old lamps scattered throughout the town. Figured after you fainted it’d probably be safer to bring you here than leave you on the streets.”

Keith squints out into the mist. “So you’re telling me this is all a dream? That we’re somehow in some shared hallucination?” Really… it didn’t make much sense whatsoever. Yes, he’d heard about bits and pieces of magic, seen a few rumored witches do nothing more than parlour tricks to the screams of the other kids, but a whole dimension? The most he’d ever seen was his father’s weapon change before his eyes, small scale stuff. But a whole world? “Sounds a little fake, but okay.”

“Here… let me just…” Shiro stands up. “It’s one of those things no one believes until they do it themselves.” He reaches out for a headstone by them, one covered with ancient candles dripping onto the carved marble. For a second his whole body freezes as if turned to stone. The next, he’s vanished entirely. 

The bread falls from Keith’s fingers as he stares at the space Shiro just disappeared from.  _ That… that wasn’t possible. People didn’t just up and vanish _ . He scrambles to his feet, dashing over to inspect the block of stone. 

Nothing. No hidden pockets, no leavers or mirrors or tricks of the light. Just an old headstone and candles, flickering in the wind. He’s tempted to reach out, to touch the stone in the same place as Shiro did, but-

Suddenly, Keith’s not reaching into thin air. Suddenly there’s a very warm, very real body against his fingers, lurching forwards and nearly knocking him to the ground. 

“W-woah! Keith, careful!”

It’s Shiro, returned again out of the blue, chest pressed far too close into Keith’s palm and into his face. Beneath his fingers he can feel the slow beating of a heart, the flex and twitch of muscle, the-

He steps back, staggering away as Shiro continues to try to dust both him and himself off from the small cloud of dust that followed him. 

“I’m sorry! I didn’t think you’d be right up on the awakening headstone like that. But… hopefully that kind of illustrates things a bit? Yharnam… doesn’t always follow the rules of the rest of the universe.” Shiro gives him a small smile, stepping back over to where Keith’d been sitting. “You dropped your bread,” he says, frowning. “That’s no good.”

“It’s fine.” Really, it’s not. He’d much rather be eating it than watching Shiro brush dirt off it, but he’s not about to follow the ten second rule in front of a stranger like that. In any case, there’s more pressing things to deal with, like-

“Be careful.” Shiro’s looking at him, bandaged arm once more stuffed into his pack. “You came here with me, so it might not recognize you at the lamp I went out to since you haven’t lit it yourself.”

“It… recognizes lamps?” This a whole extra layer of weirdness. 

Shiro looks at him quizzically, as if he’d just seriously asked why water is wet. “Well… yeah. I don’t know how it does it, but it recognizes lamps you’ve lit in the past. If you haven’t lit it yourself before it won’t take you there, even if it  _ will _ take someone else. Seeing as you came in with me… I’m not entirely sure where it’ll put you out. Hopefully somewhere, but-”

Keith retracts his hand. “Got it. Leave with you, just in case.” He sits down right in front of it, giving Shiro a side eye. “You’re not planning on trying to dump me here in this… dreamland, are you?”

Rather than answer that, Shiro stuffs a sizeable hunk of cheese in Keith’s palm. “Eat that. You’ll feel better after.”

He raises an eyebrow, but does as he’s told, taking slow bites as Shiro continues trying to salvage the bread. After almost a minute of painful silence, he puts it down. 

“Why are you doing this?”

Shiro looks up from the hunk of bread, half the outer layer of crust now picked away in an attempt to get rid of most of the dirt. “Doing what?”

“This. Feeding me. Taking me here in the first place.”

Shiro keeps prying dirt off the bread. Keith frowns.

“Answer me.”

“You’re probably not going to like it.”

“ _ Answer. _ ”

He sighs, throwing the rest of the hunk back into his sack. “I feel bad for you, okay? I know when I first learned about all this it was a bit of a shock, but at least I had someone there with me to help guide me through it. You… even though you have your parents, I get the sense they hardly told you anything.”

Keith prickles at that. “Watch it.” This guy… he had a lot of nerve, telling him his parents knew shit all. His dad raised him into everything he was now. He’s the reason Keith can clean a rabbit in a minute flat. He’s the reason he can navigate by stars and trek through untamed wilderness unharmed. He’s the one who taught him everything he knows about being a hunter. “You don’t know anything about my parents,” he growls. 

“That’s true… but I’m pretty sure they talked less about some parts of their jobs than others. And if we’re being fair, I get it.” Shiro shakes his head. “If I were a parent, I would have too, if I’d moved away from here. No one talks about it outside Yharnam’s walls, but inside… everyone knows the truth.”

“ _ What  _ truth.”

Shiro looks at him, a long forlorn look layered thick with emotions. Keith’s about to snap at him again, to stop it with those sad eyes, but Shiro beats him to it.

“The people of Yharnam are poisoned. We’re not… right. And we only have one way of dealing with it.”

Keith frowns. That was vague as all hell. Everyone knew Yharnam was one of the healthiest cities in the kingdom. Shiro was just blowing smoke up his ass. “No you’re not,” he grumbles. “People from Yharnam live-”

“You saw it,” cuts Shiro. “You saw  _ him _ . You know what it looks like now. For all the good that blood ministration does, it can’t fix  _ that _ .  _ The plague. _ ” He swallows thickly, stroking the bandages of his right arm. “The people of Yharnam are slowly turning into beasts, and the only way to combat it is to cull the pack.” He slides his gauntlet back on, metal fingers making a fist. “And that’s what hunters do Keith. We clean out those infected with the disease. Humans who are no longer human.”

“No… hunters hunt b-”

“Yes. We hunt beasts, but not normal ones.  _ Those beasts.  _ The ones no ordinary farmer or townsperson can fend off. Some of them are animals… but more… a lot more… they were human. It’s been going on for years now Keith. Since before I was born. It’s what I do, what Macidus did, what your-”

“ _ No.” _ It feels like Shiro’s stabbing and twisting a knife in his gut.  _ No _ . His parents were good, they only hunted animals. For food… or the dangerous ones. The ones roaming to close to cities, the ones putting lives at risk. They  _ wouldn’t…  _

“You’re lying,” he grits. “My parents never did that. Whatever was wrong with Macidus, it’s nothing they ever dealt with.”

“He had the blood disease. And they would have. If they ever worked in Yharnam-”

“ _ No,  _ they didn’t!” There’s a tinge of dizziness now, the spot in his stomach jabbed moments ago now bubbling with an angry, desperate heat. “You don’t know them... You don’t know the first thing about them. And you… you tell me my parents were monsters that killed people?!”

“I never-”

“No… you never…” he spits, acid threatening to bubble up his throat now. He feels sick. It has to be fake, has to be something Shiro’s making up an excuse for what Keith’d witnessed earlier. Maybe a feud between hunters, right now he couldn’t care less. “You never stopped to think, did you? You don’t get to tell me my parents were out there, killing diseased… mentally ill… deformed… I don’t know!” he yells. “You never knew them. You never knew what kind of people they were, so you can’t go telling me now that everything I know about them is a lie. You just can’t! So just stop, take me out of this fucking dream place, and stop saying they lied to me my whole life!”

He’s half-nauseous, half-seething. Shiro… how  _ could _ he? Clearly, he’s the one who’s wrong here. He’s the one who’s lying, who doesn’t know the first thing. He should have seen his actions for what they were, seen him for-

“Okay.”

“What?”

Shiro’s adam’s apple bobs, grip tightening around his ankle. “I said okay. You’re right. I don’t know the first thing about your family. That was… It was uncalled for. I didn’t mean it like that, but I can see how it looks. I wouldn’t want someone talking about my parents like that either.”

Keith stalls.  _ That was… that was sudden. _

Shiro sighs, stuffing things back in his bag. “I won’t keep you here if you don’t want to be. Here…” he shucks on his pack, reaching out with his uncovered arm. “I know you don’t want to be around me, but just let me take you to Cathedral Ward. You’ll be safe there tonight, you can rest in the Odeon chapel until morning.”

Keith blinks up at him, unsure of what to say. “You… you think I even know where that is?”

Shiro blanches. “Then… do you want me to take you back to Central Yharnam then? I can but-”

“Yeah, that sounds good.” Keith grabs him by the elbow and waits. He’s pretty sure if he finds the high street he’ll be able to navigate his way from there, and it sounds far more appealing than being dropped off in a church someplace he’s never been before.“You can leave me there, at whatever your fancy lamp is. I’ll find a place on my own.”

“If you’re sure.” 

Keith chews his tongue for a minute. Shiro’s backtrack has him second guessing things, but still… there’s so much he’s said that seems too fake to be true. 

“I’m sure.”

Shiro bites his lip, as if holding back. Keith’s having none of it. As much as the guy gives off calm vibes, the way he talked sometimes, the way he cut down Father Macidus in cold blood… He can’t fully trust him. Only enough that he’ll get him where he needs to be. Nothing more.

“Hold on.” Energy crackles through them, Keith’s bangs stirring in an unfelt breeze. It’s like all his limbs are waking up from being asleep, pins and needles everywhere, and then nothing. One second he sees the flower fields of the dream and then the next, nothing but darkness.

“I’m sorry…” A voice by his side, soft, delicate, like eggshells in the hand. The grip on his arm intensifies, then with a knee-jarring impact, they’re out of the void, back on the streets of Yharnam. 

He’s ready to return to the dark, moonlit streets and navigate his way to the main gate. Maybe he can approach a guard there, ask for directions to an actually open tavern or an in or someone who’ll let him stay the night. Worst case scenario, he’ll find a tree and crash there, out of sight and out of mind for any lowlifes roaming about at night. 

He’s not ready for what awaits them though.

He’s dimly aware of Shiro removing his hand from some eerie, orange-cast lantern, of the arm he’s holding onto pulling away. Part of him recognizes the square as one he’d crossed earlier that day, the one with signs and pennants hanging from storefronts, sunbleached and slowly peeling. It had been frenzied there, filled with people bustling too and fro shoving and chatting, friendly, like town on Sunday after church let out.

It’s frenzied now, but completely different. 

In front of them, not 10 yards away, a man drives a spear through some great bipedal beast, its jaws gnashing and caked with blood from his bleeding arm. There’s bodies littered around the square, at least four or five of them, in various states of dismemberment, rusty blood oozing into the paving stones with their final heartbeats. Somewhere in the distance he can hear a woman shrieking, crying out for help above the cacophony of grunts and snarls. 

Something hisses to his left. Keith spins around

A monster, a great winged thing advances on him. Jet black, enormous, far bigger than any bird he’s ever seen, its feathers matted with gore and viscera, beak stained with patches of dried blood. It looks possessed, ravenous, staring at him like a hunk of meat. 

He stumbles back, reaching for his blade. He barely pulls it from its sheath before Shiro is shooting past him, a blur of metal and coattails, gauntlet cracking with sparks, and punches the thing straight in the jaw. 

It flies backward, following to the ground and rolling with a sickening crunch. Shiro dashes forwards, dealing more blows to it as it struggles to stand, and with a screeching cry it falls still. Another swoops down on him, from somewhere overhead and Shiro spins, grabbing it mid-flight and slamming it to the ground with its fallen brethren. Two more blows and it too falls still.

“Carrion crows,” Shiro shakes his head, flicking blood from his gauntlet. “Go after anything they think they can make a meal out of. Not even the worst you find at night around here.”

Keith swallows, throat dry. Behind Shiro another hunter makes quick work of a rabid, foaming dog, putting the creature out of its misery in much the same way. There’s so much blood… so much violence, he wants to look away but  _ can’t _ , eyes swivelling from each new horror to the next, followed by the people holding them back. The bipedal…  _ thing _ the hunter across the square was fighting is now crawling across the cobblestones, fighting to take down it’s attacker even as the man deals strike after strike to stop it. The woman in the distance is still shrieking, panicked sobs now ringing out too. 

_ This is.... This is the Hunt. _

Another crow lands in front of him, directly between him and Shiro. It’s beady eyes inspected them both, head tilting in a crooked semblance of its normal brethren, eyeing them both up. Shiro, with two of it’s dead comrades at his feet. Keith, still, uncovered in blood. 

The choice is all too obvious. 

“Keith! Your blade!”

He barely has enough time to grab it, to unsheath his dagger and land a gash across its face. He can feel bits of debris and remnant land on him, smell the putrid smell of its feathers as it attacks, the ugly rake of its talons across his arm as it dodges back. He prepares himself for another strike, other hand hovering over his sword, watching for its next move. It stalks around him, looking for opening. 

Keith lets it, then goes for another attack. 

This one’s less successful, just nicking a wing as it bites at his leg, sharp beak digging into his boot as it tries to take a piece of him. He knocks it back, head bashed with the side of his scabbard, stumbling away clutching the ripped leather of his boot. Any higher, and it would have broken the skin. It shakes its head, feathers ruffling up as it hisses, massive beak opening wide-

And releasing a bone chilling scream as a bullet pierces its brain. Shiro stands before him, gun drawn and smoking. 

“This is why I wanted to take you to the cathedral,” he says, quickly rushing Keith away from the twitching body and into an alcove. His face twists in fear as he sees the shredded fabric of his pants and boot. “This is what I’m talking about Keith…” fingers squeeze his calf, hunting for a trace of blood or damage. “The beasts that roam the streets here, they’re not normal. And carrion crows, they’re not even the half of it. They’re just wild animals that have been hit by the same plague as us Yharnamites.”

“Beasts…” Keith gulps, slowly retracting his leg from Shiro. Behind them the bipedal thing shrieks and falls still, a dark stain spreading from it’s hairless, misshapen body. “I think… I think I’m willing to believe you now. I’ve never seen stuff like this in my life.” He’s never seen anything like them, not outside of feverish nightmares and the most twisted of fairy tales. He can’t… he’s still having trouble believing it, but the bite on his leg still stings as fresh as the scratches on his arm. 

They’re real. 

They’re real… and there’s a real chance his parents had fought one before. 

Suddenly, he feels a whole lot sicker than before. The lines on his dad’s face, the way his temples pulled whenever he asked about his life before Keith… had they really been hiding all that… all  _ this? _

“Are these… normal?”

Shiro quickly inspects his arm, glancing over his shoulder every few seconds at the battle that continues to unfold behind them. “Unfortunately. They’re overrunning a lot of town… Our best guess is that some normal birds started gorging on fallen Yharnamites with the plague and-” Shiro grits, “well, you’ve seen how that played out.”

Keith nods slowly. If infected crows were this bad, he could only imagine what other infected scavengers could be like too. Like the dog the other hunter’s now put down. And humans… his throat goes dry, swallow catching halfway through. Father Macidus. By how Shiro talked… they could be far, far worse than this.

Shiro, satisfied he’s alright, lets his arm go. “You got away better than I did the first time I ran into one. Got me right here.” He draws a line over the scar across his nose. “Was damn lucky it didn’t manage to get one of my eyes. C’mon, let’s get you out of here before more show up.”

“To where?”

“Oeden chapel, though if we can’t manage that we could try to get to another safe haven I know of. The night’s still fairly young, all those that are going to turn probably still haven’t yet, and the last thing I want is for you to-”

A rumble fills the square, low… hair raising, as if in the belly of a growling beast. Shiro’s face goes white. 

“Oh no…”

They both spot them at the same time. Two shadows, materializing out of the fog. 

More than shadows. 

Wolves. Or at least… something like wolves. 

The snouts, the hair, the tails… they’re entirely wolfish, if not part specter. Everything is elongated, wispy, ragged and off kilter, like the crows before them. But there’s pieces that don’t fit. Their gaits… aren’t canine. The front claws, the legs, the chest… it’s humanoid. Warped and twisted, but distinctly  _ once human _ , right down to the mangled shreds of clothing clinging by final threads around their bodies. 

_ “Fuck!” _ The hunter near them yells, taking a large swig from a flask on his hip and gripping his spear. “This isn’t good…”

“Scourge beasts….” Shiro whispers. “And a pack too… this isn’t good. If we don’t-”

“If we don’t what?”

Shiro bites his lip, giving Keith a wavering look. “If we don’t deal with them fast, they could call others nearby. They’re not like the crows Keith, they’re smart. They’re-”

“Yeah, I can guess,” he says, drawing his sword. His fingers shake against the hilt. “They’re infected with this plague?”

Shiro nods, doing something to his gauntlet that has spines crackling out of the fist from nowhere. “Rack up!” he yells, dashing into the street back to back with the other hunter. “They can’t get at all of us if we work together.”

Another hunter, a woman, who’d been fighting on the other side of the square dashes to Shiro’s side as well. Keith balks for a second, looking from his sword to the group. He… he’s never fought anything worse than a coyote. Being in the fray’s probably just going to be more trouble than it’s worth. He could accidentally hit one of the others with a swing, or-

“Keith! Get over here!  _ Now! _ ”

The beasts are charging at them, great claw-like hands plodding against the pavement, jaws dripping, eyes wide and bloodshot. One makes for the ring of hunters, staring down the shaft of the man’s spear, but the other-

“Keith,  _ move! _ ”

He jumps out of the way just in time, the second scourge beast colliding with the wall and splintering the wood of the door he’d just been against. He can feel the heat of its body as he leaps, the rumble of its growl in his bones. He takes a diving roll across the pavement, managing to lash out with a swipe against the beast’s rear leg as he jumps back on his feet, only to be nearly knocked back from them. 

“Stay with me.” Shiro’s back presses firm against his own, the hunter slowly guiding him to spin in place until they’re both half facing the beast. “They’ll try to pick people off one by one if they can. Gang up if it’s possible.”

Behind them Keith can hear the snapping of the other beast and the clang of teeth on steel. The pair of hunters are backing away, the scourge beast trying to swipe and knock the man’s spear from his hands before he finds room to jab at again and again. 

“They’ve got that one handled,” grunts Shiro, his hand squeezing Keith’s thigh. “Focus on the one at hand. We’ve got to subdue it before it can start working with the other again.”

He nods, swallowing the nerves bubbling up in his throat as he steadies his grip on his sword once more.  _ Wolves… _ he’d only ever barely interacted with them back in the woods behind his home. Best to leave a kill with them and leave, lest they decide to try and gang up on him for the meat. The rule there had been plain and simple: don’t try and fight them if you don’t have to. Here, that no longer applied. 

“Avoid the teeth and claws. That’s what they’ll get you with. Sides are safer, go for short, sharp attacks. If you’re good at parrying, you should be able to block off most blows they throw at you.”

Keith barely has a chance to reply before the beast makes it’s first attack. It lunges, jaws snapping at them. He has barely any time to raise his sword, let alone steady his stance before it’s on them, claws slashing against the flat of his blade. The force behind it shoves him back, leaves him nearly stumbling, and its all he can do to plant a foot and hold firm against it. He manages a kick to it’s lower jaw, the great yellow teeth gnashing as he yanks himself away, and then it’s Shiro, a flurry of coat and cloak in front of him as the hunter lunges at the beast and punches it square in the jaw. 

“Stay low,” he grunts, pulling his pistol from his belt. “And be ready. They’ll keep attacking you until you’re overwhelmed.”

The second lunge goes for Shiro this time, straight for his unprotected arm, but he’s ready. A shot whizzes through the beast’s left ear, his right arm braced and ready for the blow. He takes it with a clang of bone on steel, his bulk sliding back into Keith’s as the wolf’s jaws twitch and slobber over his guarded forearm. He can see the man struggle, his arm shake with the pressure from it, trying to find an opening to throw it off, and suddenly he knows what’s next. Keith shoves into him, forcing Shiro to spin and twist sideways just in time to take a lash of claws against his sword. 

There’s a garbled hiss around Shiro’s arm as his blade cuts through the beast’s fingers, the arm retracting quick as it came with those glowing gold-green eyes boring into him with pure hatred. Keith goes for another jab, this one straight to the beast’s middle, but he’s too easy to read, the thing leaping back, releasing Shiro in the process. 

“Thanks,” grunts Shiro, shaking out his pink drool covered gauntlet. “Couldn’t get a steady shot in.”

“S’fine.” He barely hears Shiro, he’s so focused on the monster in front of them. It’s huge. Twice the size of a man, stalking carefully just out of range of his swing.  _ How the hell were they expected to bring it down? _

There’s a smash and rush of heat and light behind them, followed by an aggressive howl. Keith turns heel just in time to see the other beast retreat from the other two hunters in the light of a fireball, bits of its face cut and bleeding, fur singed away. 

“You have any of those?” he asks, suddenly shoved behind Shiro as the man dives forwards to take the next fury of the beast’s swipes with his arm and pistol alone.

“Fresh out,” he grunts, another shot ringing out and the beast snarling as he catches it in the shoulder. “Don’t suppose you brought Molotov cocktails with you either?”

Keith swerves around him, getting a blow in on the same leg before it retreats again. “What do you think?”

“Eh, Figured.” Shiro takes another shot at the thing, but it whizzes through the fur of the beast’s scruff. “Got to do this the hard way.” He takes another shot, only for the tell-tale clicking of an empty barrel to come. 

_ “Fuck. _ ” 

He’s fumbling in his pants for bullets now, focus diverted between that and the beast. Keith watches those glowing eyes sweep over them both, feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end at the thing’s hackles raise and it’s hips settle low on its haunches. 

Keith has barely enough time to grab Shiro by the collar, tugging him out of the way as the beast pounces at them both. They stumble, Keith’s grip still strong as he falls to his knees, bringing Shiro with him. Weight lands on top of him, hard and muscled, adrenaline rushing through him. He can feel every part of Shiro pressed against him, his body screaming as they both struggle and shove trying to seperate themselves before it can launch another attack. 

There’s a snarl and Keith’s pulled down, tugged even closer to Shiro as they roll, claws landing inches from his head had been. There’s an arm around his waist, Keith thrown up and over a knee back to kneeling as Shiro spins them back onto their feet. It’s so fast, the world still spinning, he barely finds what’s up and down before he’s bringing his sword up once again to block and slash. 

“I need to reload! We need cover, get to-”

“It’s fine,” he grunts, taking another swipe and trying for one of his own. “Hurry!”

“But-”

“ _ Hurry! _ ” Keith bellows, blocking another swipe followed by a lunge of jaws and teeth. He manages to get the beast across the face, nicking an eye in the process. It jumps back, snarling and pawing at it’s socket as blood drips down over its muzzle, the once lamp-light bright orb now dimmed dull red. He wants to check how Shiro’s doing, how many bullets he’s reloaded, but he’s terrified to look away. He’s got to keep his focus on the beast, got to hold it back got to-

A searing pain cuts into his side, his balance thrown off as he stumbles, nearly dropping his sword. Panic seizes him, muscles freezing up as he prepares for the worst, matted hair and sickly muscle pressing into his side as he’s flung forwards, scrambling to stay upright on the cobblestones. Behind him, a scream. 

He sees it, just at the woman charges forwards and stabs her spear into Keith’s beast. Shiro, knocked to the ground, bullets strewn every which way as a new beast stalks towards him, the charred carcass of the third still smouldering at the other man’s feet. 

“Oy! Boy!” He yells at Keith, shoulder oozing blood as he continues to swipe at the other beast’s maw. “Yer’ blade! Change it! Shoot it now!”

“I…” Keith stammers, staring down at his sword. He’s… he’s never managed… He still hasn’t even mastered swordsmanship yet. 

Shiro lets out a cry as he dodges the beast on the ground, it’s claws catching his ankle as he tries to reach out to grab a bullet before him.

“Hurry! What are you waiting for?!”

“I…” Keith swallows again, desperately willing his blade to do  _ something… anything…  _ but entirely lost as to what. He can’t focus. All he can see right now is the scourge beast looming over Shiro, caging him in even as the hunter tries to jab and punch at its underbelly, jaws gaping, body boxing him in, preparing for the kill. 

His body reacts on instinct when he sees it. The tensing of the jaw, the draw back of the neck. His hand goes to his hip, fingers sliding around the hilt he’s known his whole life. 

Without thinking, he flings his dagger into the beast, and with a roar and gush of blood, it sinks true. Right into the side of its neck, punching through the sinew and arteries. 

The beast goes beserk, snapping and twisting to fight thin air, it’s clawed feet stepping over Shiro’s body, making the man jerk and wince as the beast turns it’s sights on Keith. The look it gives him freezes him in place. Pure fury, but not animalistic. Seething, vicious, _human_ hatred. Intelligence there no beast should have. The breath catches in Keith’s throat, the grip on his sword faltering as the _thing_ takes a woozy step towards him. And another. And _another_. 

His body isn’t his to control right now. It’s entirely out of his element, too unable to process the face of the monster staring him down, despite the way his brain  _ screeches _ at him he needs to move, needs to fight, needs to do  _ something _ . 

But that something doesn’t come. From nowhere a brass fist flies into the beast’s snout, smashing bone, knocking it sideways as another fist swings up to take his knife and twist it  _ deep _ into the creature’s wound. 

With a garbled howl and spray of blood, the beast goes limp, body keeling over, leaving only the figure standing over it. 

Shiro, covered in blood and scratches. 

Behind him Keith feels the heat of another Molotov cocktail going off and the screaming howl of the final scourge beast falling still. He should feel warm. He should be relieved. He’s alive. He survived, he fought and killed a beast threatening his any everyone’s lives. But he doesn’t. All he feels is the chill setting into his bones, the shake that’s taking over his body.

It’s so much that he doesn’t even process Shiro’s at his side until he’s already there, unguarded hand holding one of his own. 

“Keith… Are you okay?” His voice sounds like its coming from a hollow tube, far away. There’s something warm and wet on the palm that squeezes his own. “Keith?”

The weight of his sword in his hand is too much, the cuts and scrapes on his body suddenly all stinging at once. The heat of the battle is gone, leaving nothing but the cold dread of the reality he’s now facing. His grip falters, the blade falling to the ground. He can still see his knife in the beast’s neck, see the steam and blood leave it’s motionless body. A body prone in no way a wolf’s ever would be. 

“Keith?” Shiro’s hand’s now running up his shoulder, trying to rub some small comfort into his worn muscles. “Keith, please… can you answer me?”

His mouth feels like it’s filled with shards of glass, stomach stuffed with a thousand bees. He’s not sure he wants to, but he  _ has  _ to. He has to ask. “That…” he stammers, “that was… that was a human, wasn’t it? We just… we just...”

The tensing of Shiro’s jaw is more than enough to confirm it. “Yes…” he says quietly. He pulls Keith against his chest with his good arm. “Yes… they were.”

“And there’s… there’s no-”

“No. There’s not. Believe me, people have tried. This is the best we can do. Keep innocent people safe. It… it doesn’t get easier, you’re just… more used to it. More numb.” He hugs Keith closer, pulling his head to rest on his shoulder. 

Keith sinks into the warmth, fingers finding their way into Shiro’s coat. Something stable in the middle of a world gone off center. 

“My… my parents.” It hits him, all of a sudden, the full weight of it all. “They had to… they did this too. They killed-”

“They killed.” He can feel Shiro’s adam’s apple bob against his temple. “Yes… but to protect. They did it to protect the people of Yharnam. And raising you… keeping this… secret… they did it for the same reason. To protect you. To keep you from having to live through the same things they did.”

_ His parents _ . All this time… they tried to keep him from this, and in the end he’s still here. He’s still covered in someone else’s blood, standing on a street corner surrounded by the corpses of plague beasts. 

“Let it out,” Shiro whispers. “I know… I know what you’re going through… the shock… everything. Keeping it inside… it eats you up, you need to let it out…” His voice is so calm, so steady, even through the waver as he moves to cup Keith’s back. “Just… just do what you need, I’m here.”

A noise, broken and lost, leaves his chest. He’s not sure for how long, he’s not sure for what. All he knows is the new reality washing over him, and the steady presence of Shiro’s arms around him.


	3. Chapter 3

Keith wakes to the smell of cooking meat and potatoes. For a second he swears he’s back home, in his father’s cabin, the smell of dinner wafting through the small rooms as his old man bustles about preparing his latest catch. But one blink, one cracked open eye reveals that to be false. 

Still… he supposes it could be worse. 

Shiro’s crouched in front of a small fire, pot bubbling away atop the coals. Beside him is his pack and two small bowls, nestled in the blue-grey grass of the Dream. Keith’s stomach grows as the scent wafts over him again, and that’s enough for him to get up properly. 

“You’re awake.” Shiro smiles, handing him a bowl filled with stew, potatoes and carrots swimming in its thick gravy. “Was wondering when you’d finally show signs of life again.”

“Tired,” is all he manages to grunt, hastily spooning up a mouthful. Its piping hot, almost scalding, but it feels so good sliding down his throat, warm and comforting as any homemade meal. “ ‘S good. You’re not bad at cooking.”

“I’m awful actually, but my mentor managed to drill in stew making into my thick skull. Don’t ask for anything else though, unless you want it charred or salted to death.” Shiro chuckles, settling down cross legged to watch Keith eat.

He glances at Shiro, then at the other bowl by the man’s knee. “You’re not eating?”

Shiro flushes. “I… already ate earlier, hope that’s alright. I’ve never really liked having people watch me while I do it, weird quirk I guess.”

“A little, yeah.” But Keith’s not about to turn up one of the first hot meals he’s had in what feels like days for something as little as Shiro’s weird insecurities. He tucks back in with gusto, taking in their surroundings once more. 

“What time is it?” he asks. As far as he can tell, it’s still twilight here, horizon still on the verge of sunrise or the aftermath of sunset. Good for sleeping at least. 

“Almost tea time.”

Keith spits out his latest spoonful. 

_ “Mid-afternoon? _ As in, I slept the whole morning?”

“And a little of the afternoon too, yeah. Was debating whether or not I should wake you up but figured after all your travelling and what you went through last night-” Shiro stops, watching as Keith scarffs down the rest of his stew. “... Or maybe that wasn’t the right call.”

“You’re goddamn right it wasn’t…” Keith scrapes the final few spoonfuls from the bottom and throws the dish down. “I’ve almost lost an entire day now… I still have no idea where to find a blood minister and-”

Shiro stiffens, outstretched hand frozen over Keith’s empty bowl. 

“What?” he frowns.

“That’s why you’re here? For blood ministration?”

Shiro’s reaction’s leaving him with a prickle of unease in his gut. “Well, yeah... Why else would I come here? It’s already pretty dang clear I didn’t come to be a hunter.”

“I guess… I guess I don’t know.” Shiro folds his hands over his lap, brow wrinkling. “Maybe I thought your family just has strange rights of passage? You could have come to deliver something for your family, or maybe pay respects?”

Keith’s gut churns at that mention. The memory of his mother walking out the door, the promise to one day return from her hunt… His dad had never told him where she’d gone, but now… now he had a pretty good idea of  _ where _ her final destination had been. For years now he’d waffled between two outcomes… an unmarked grave, or the conscious choice to never return to her husband and child. Now… now he knew the truth. There was a third option. One far worse than either of the others. 

“Not that.” The thought of wandering the cemeteries here, looking for some etching of her name or crest makes the churning worse. He can’t do that. Not now. Not when dad’s home, not when he’s like  _ that _ , fading… weakened. 

He’s not strong enough to lose both at once. 

“It’s for my dad,” he sighs. “He’s… he’s not well. The healer in our town hasn’t been able to do much for him either. I figured… if blood ministration helps so many people here, it’s worth a shot.”

Shiro adverts his gaze. “I… I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“I didn’t tell you.”

He nods, swallowing. “I guess it makes sense then, you traveling with your father’s equipment. He’s not well enough to make the trek on his own.”

“Yeah.” Keith’s fingers sweep over the curve of his blade. “He’s the strongest man I know… seeing him now… it’s… it’s-”

“You don’t have to say it.”

Keith blinks back the sting of tears. “Thanks. I just… I can’t lose him too, you know? He’s… he’s raised me. He’s done everything for me. That’s something you can’t just forget, you know?”

The heavy weight of a hand braces on his shoulder. Keith looks up to Shiro smiling at him, a streak of sunlight through a dusty, weathered window. “I think I have an idea. That kind of person, they’re the ones you can’t let go. You’ll do anything for them.”

“Y-yeah…” he blinks again, the threat of crying waning now. “Which is why… why I really need to find a minister, and fast.”

Shiro’s face twists back into a frown. “I’m not exactly the biggest fan of them, but I know where a few are in the city. You sure your father hasn’t been ministered before?”

It’s Keith’s turn to frown. “No… I don’t think so. What difference would it make? Just because he got it once before doesn’t mean he can’t have it again.”

Shiro chews his lip. “You’re not wrong… just…” he lets out a long breath. “Just… promise me you won’t let them woo you into doing anything you’ll regret. Some of them… they go too far. Talk you into things you don’t need. If they can’t guarantee they can help your father, leave it at that.”

“What are you…”

“It’s getting late,” Shiro says, packing up their bowls and kicking out the fire. “If you want to see a minister before tomorrow, we have to get there before sunset. The hunt is still on, no one’s letting anyone left on the streets in once the moon rises.”

Keith watches in disbelief as he continues to pack up camp. “What are you talking about? What do you have against ministration?”

Shiro pauses, lines on his young face suddenly all too apparent. “There’s… a lot. A lot personal, and a lot that comes from seeing people abuse it. Stuff you don’t need to know Keith. Not if this is a one time thing for your family. If your parents asked you to come here, to retrieve an aliquot for them, then it’s because they know it’s the only thing that will help. They wouldn’t have sent you otherwise.”

There’s a flip flopping of Keith’s gut, a twist of his intestines that has his knees wobbling as he makes to rise. Shiro… the way he talked about it… made it seem like it should only be a last resort, something his father wouldn’t want unless it was life or death. 

He… he’d never asked if that was the case. If what Shiro said was true, how would his father react when he finally told him the reason he’d left?

* * *

The sun’s blanketed in a thick shawl of cloud, patches peeking out from stripes here and there as Keith and Shiro make their way across town. The late afternoon is filled with Yharnamites moving about, guiding livestock, selling wares, chattering on doorsteps. It’s a juxtaposition of the night before, normal people living normal lives in a city filled with nightly horrors. At first glance, you could hardly tell these are the same streets that had last night been filled with blood and monsters. But knowing the truth, now Keith could.

There was a way everyone held themselves, like deer in a clearing, one snapped twig away from scattering. Every so often he’d catch one of them looking over their shoulder, up at the sky, judging the time they had left until they had to retreat into their homes. The doors… Keith realized now, the ones left open right now in the light of day. He could see just how thick their builds were, the size of the crossbeams used to brace them at dark. The small weapons, the mallots and the clubs propped against walls just beyond the thresholds, ready to beat back any beast that tried to intrude. 

If Shiro noticed this, he paid it no heed. He was walking at a fast clip, enough that Keith stumbled on the verge of walking and jogging to keep up with him, coattails fluttering out behind him as he strode forwards with purpose, metal arm gleaming in the sun. Being born here, living through whatever cursed plague had befallen Yharnam since however long ago it had begun… this must all seem natural to him, even if to Keith, it was anything but. 

He watches as a mother draws her son closer to her side as they pass, her eyes shooting daggers into Shiro’s back. As soon as she catches gaze with Keith she frowns, spinning on her heels and guiding her child down the street away from them. 

He swallows, hiking the strap of his blade higher onto his shoulder, and hurries after Shiro. 

“Hunters… don’t seem to be too popular, do they?” he asks, watching as another man gives them a filthy look from behind a fruit stall. 

“Not really,” Shiro shrugs, eyes still fixed on ahead. “You can’t fully blame them. We’re always in close contact with beasts. In their eyes, we’re the ones they think can infect them most, the ones who touch tainted blood every night. Not to mention, we’re the ones that cull anything that turns. Anyone who’s lost a family member to the disease has lost them a second time at our hands. We’re not celebrated, we’re a necessary evil needed to save life.”

They stop at a crossing for a cart to pass, sheep and cattle lowing in the traffic. 

“So your entire life, you’ve just put up with it? Townsfolk giving you dirty looks?” Just as he says it, the farmer on the cart eyes Shiro apprehensively.

“More or less,” he sighs. “Some hunters are more celebrated than others. A few even get to a point where the majority of folk around here respect them, even if they don’t always want them. Me though… there’s enough that have been rubbed the wrong way by me that I’ve given up trying to appease them. I can do what I can to try and make up for the mistakes I’ve made in the past, but there’s no point trying to appease someone who won’t be reasoned with.”

“They dislike you that much?” Keith looks over Shiro as they start walking again. As much as he hadn’t been the biggest fan of the man on their first meeting, he can’t say he feels the same now. As much as he could come off cold or blunt in first impressions, there’s a good person behind all that, one willing to look after someone as clueless and over his head as himself. He can’t quite imagine anyone getting to know him a little would still feel that way. Like that hunter from last night… willing to have him fight to defend them both but fully opposed to offering a hand when the roles reversed. 

“I’m… a special case.” Shiro ducks down a crowded alley now, guiding Keith between crates and boxes. “Not much I can do about it. Better off not dwelling on it when I can just keep showing them wrong.”

“Yeah, but for how long?” Keith mumbles, dodging a puddle of muck and weaving around a pack of screaming kids. “Why keep protecting all of them if they’re shitty to you?”

Shiro stops, hand going to the ruff of feathers that decorate his shoulder. “Because… if I do that, I just prove them right. I let them win. She taught me that, a long time ago. Work that truly matters is never regarded well. Not when it comes with a price.”

“Who?”

Shiro huffs, hint of a smile on his lips as he looks off into the distance. “My sponsor. An amazing person. She’s the one who taught me everything I know.” He strokes the pin above his breast, barely visible beneath his ruff. “There’s no way I’d ever let myself forget her teachings.”

More questions hang on Keith’s tongue, but Shiro’s already weaving down another path, leaving him to hurry to catch up. Shiro’d had a mentor? Where were they now? What had happened to them? The way Shiro talked about them… it didn’t seem like they’d died… but at the same time… there was a finality, an edge of sadness that weighted his words, like he never expected to see them again. He’d never been the best about talking about sensitive things, but it prickles at him, the feeling that Shiro might be willing to talk, if just prompted right. He spends the better part of several minutes, trying to think of the right way to ask, but just as he comes up with something halfway decent in his mind, they’ve stopped. 

Shiro stands with his hands planted on his hips in front of a rundown storefront, the type of place Keith wouldn’t have thought twice about had he passed it himself. Crystals hang from spun-silver chains in the window, a dusty crystal ball sitting on a pillow below them. All in all, it gives the air of a kitschy novelty parlour rather than an actual clinic. 

Keith gives him a look. 

“I thought you said you were taking me to a minister. Not a fortune teller.”

“They do both here,” he says, stepping up to rap on the door. “Romelle’s the seer, Luka’s the minister. They’re not greedy or misguided like some of the others are. They’ll help you figure out the best thing for your father, whether it’s blood ministration or not.”

“And you seriously think a two-bit tarrot card reader knows more than the healing woman back home? Cause I-”

“Shiro! Hello!” A young woman with blonde hair tied back in two long plaits appears in the doorway, nervously combing her fingers through one of them. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Hi Romelle,” Shiro grins awkwardly, glancing between her and Keith. “I know you hadn’t asked me to visit, but I’ve got a friend here who really needs to talk to someone with some knowledge of ministration.”

“And you weren’t enough? I figured with your experience Shiro you’d-”

“He  _ knows _ I’m biased Romelle,” he hushes, a slight flush creeping into his cheeks. “And he’s pretty dead set on it, so really, I didn’t have much say in the matter, save for bringing him to you. You know I trust you guys more than the other clinics in town.”

“True,” she grins, eyes sweeping over Keith with a definite air of appreciation. “He’s pretty cute, where did you pick him up?”

“Donaldson’s square, if you  _ have _ to know,” Shiro groans. “Can we please come in? I know you guys aren’t going to be open much longer.”

“Well…” she drums her fingers against her chin, voice taking on a sing-song quality. “I  _ could _ just leave you out here until nightfall, but considering there’s a few things I could use your specific skills for, come on in. Luka’s just wrapped up with another patient.”

She slides out of the doorway, letting them both pass. Keith blinks at the interior. It’s entirely different than what he’d expected from the outside. Although shabby here and there, there’s the definite glow of hominess from everywhere he looks. Soft lamp light fills the corners, while faded scarves and silks drape over a doorway and table laden with cards and tea. There’s a chair with a bundle of half finished knitting in the corner, and a pot of something bubbling away over the fire in the hearth. 

“Weapons off boys,” she says, gaze wavering on Keith’s sword. “Can’t be too careful. And besides, not like there’s any beasts here.” She laughs, patting Shiro on the shoulder as he shucks off his gauntlet with a groan. 

“You don’t have to keep saying that every time,” he grumbles. 

“Aww, but I like to. Come on, I’ll take you to Luka.”

They’re guided down a hall to the left, wallpaper peeling at the edges and smelling faintly of incense. Keith can just spy the entrance to what looks like a workshop further down, but they stop at a door partway through. 

“Luka?” Romelle knocks on the paneling, one pearl-clad ear pressed against the door. “You in there? You’ve got another visitor.”

There’s a shuffling and the turn of a lock that leads up to a pale, redheaded face staring out at them. She shoots Romelle a look of indifference before frowning up at Shiro, then settling on Keith. Her eyes are almost startlingly gold, piercing into him with their intensity as she takes him in with an unreadable look on her face. 

“Is he here for himself, or this one?” she huffs. There’s a dryness to her voice that’s completely absent in Romelle’s. 

“This one,” Romelle says, grabbing Keith’s shoulders and shoving him in front of her. “He’s new in town, apparently. Wanted to meet a minister.”

Luka nods, settling against the doorframe as she looks back over at Shiro. “And you? Are you planning to sit in and trash my work the whole time again?”

Shiro’s voice is as icy as hers in his reply. “I’m not trashing anything you do Luka. I’m just not a fan of the whole ministration process.”

“And yet you still like to make comments un-”

“Shiro’ll stay with me,” Romelle interjects, fingers sliding up his shoulders and pulling him back away from Luka. “I’ve got a few things he can appraise with me.”

“I don’t-”

“Shhhh,” she soothes, patting him on the shoulder. “You know how you and Luka get. Just leave her and your friend to talk and we can catch up and have a bite. You look starved.”

“I’m fine, honestly,” Shiro laughs nervously. “No need to crack open anything for me.”

“Nonsense! I know how you get! Besides, you’ll be helping me out too.”

Despite having the build of someone who could easily bench him, Shiro was surprisingly helpless in Romelle’s grip, half walking, half being dragged down the hall towards the workshop. He gives Keith a guilty look as she continues to chatter away at him, Keith’s pretty sure he’s trying to mouth something along the lines of  _ ‘good luck _ ’ and sorry as she guides him away, leaving him alone with the minister. 

“So…” the redhead looks him over again, this time with clinical intensity. “You’re here for a ministration, are you?”

“Ah… sort of?”

She clicks her tongue, eyes on the verge of rolling, and waves him to follow her. “No point in acting all apprehensive and stuff just because Shiro’s probably told you some horror stories about it. Ministration’s fine, so long as you do it in moderation and you’re not a huge fucking prick about it.”

“Horror stories?” Keith tails her into the tiny room, taking in the dozens of shelves and cabinets lined with bottles and books. “What kind of horror stories?”

“So he hasn’t told you,” she says, settling down into a worn chair. Keith takes the bench opposite her. “Interesting…”

He blinks, taken off-guard. “Interesting why? All he said was that I should only be using it as a last resort. Nothing else.”

“Eh, he’s not totally wrong. Some people here are a little loopy for the stuff. Think they need a top up every time they so much as cough. Overkill, but hey, that’s business.” She shrugs, whipping out a tome and pen, acting utterly unconcerned in the matter.

Keith frowns. “You didn’t answer the question. Why is it so interesting Shiro hasn’t been telling me horror stories of blood ministering?”

“It’s not really my place,” Luka says, winding a strand of hair around her finger, “but I suppose if you’re curious I can give you the basic run down.”

His nails dig into the wood of the bench. “What run down?”

Luka’s brows tweak up, a shadow of a grin appearing on her thin face. “Just that our friend, Shiro… he didn’t have the nicest minister when he was young. From what Rommie’s drawn out of him, sounds like he was pretty little when he caught something bad,  _ really bad _ . Probably would’ve died if he didn’t get ministered when he did.”

Keith’s grip tightens on the lip of the bench. Shiro’d never mentioned being sick,  _ that sick _ . 

“Of course, he’s fine now. There’s a few lasting side effects, but really…  _ that _ ? In exchange for life? An orphan like him should be a lot more grateful than he is for it. If he hadn’t belonged to the church he’d be dead a long time ago. Not just anyone gets treated by the Choir,” she hums, feather of her quill stroking dreamily across her cheek. “I’ve heard they can be strict, but that power… that knowledge… it’s something any minister dreams of.”

Keith’s tongue cements to the roof of his mouth. Shiro’s… an orphan. He’d never given it any thought… but knowing that now… that half-sad look whenever Keith mentioned his own parents… it made sense. He may have only had his dad most of his life, but Shiro’d been brought up by the church, looked after by… by whatever this choir was. He knows he’s only known the man for the better part of a day now, but still… hearing all this so matter of fact from a healer, like it’s nothing… it feels off... wrong. As if he should have waited, tried to coax it from Shiro himself. It’s throwing him off balance.

“Sh-Shiro’s part of the church?”

“Mmm, used to be. Pretty sure he cut ties when he got older. Ran off and started tagging around with a Crow until fairly recently. All that opportunity wasted, just because he didn’t like how someone stuck him with a needle. Anyway,” she cracks open the book to a new page, pen poised at the ready, “enough about the killjoy. What’re you in for…”

“Keith…” he croaks awkwardly, still trying to process everything. Luka’s pivoted so fast, and he’s still focused on everything about Shiro. At… at some point he had to talk about it with him, maybe not all of it, but some… But right now… right now he needed to focus on the task at hand, and that was getting a cure for his father. Shiro could wait. He licks his lips, giving her a sheepish look. “I… I need blood.”

“Well, you’re in the right place,” Luka says dryly, gesturing to several bottles filled with red liquid. “But you’re going to have to be a little more specific than that. I’m not just going to give it to you without a reason. For all I know you could be from one of my competitors looking to get their hands on my stock. So what’s your issue? Gout? Stomach pain? Nasty bout of warts on the privates?”

“Ah…” Keith cringes, “not exactly. It’s… it’s for my dad actually.”

“Oh…” Luka looks up from her book. “And you didn’t bring him? I can better treat someone when they’re actually here with me.”

“I… uh… I didn’t think of that too much when I set out. Plus, I don’t know if he’d have been up for the journey.”

“Right, right… Romelle mentioned something like that.” She scribbles something in her book. “Well… I suppose we can discuss possibilities for down the line. For all I know whatever he has isn’t something that really necessitates blood anyway. So, what’s he got?”

“That’s it. I don’t know.”

Luka’s brow twitches. “Okay, well, let’s start with symptoms. What and how long have they been going on for?”

“A-about a month. He just started feeling a little more tired here and there and then before I knew it he was running a fever hotter than a pan on the hearth. And… and then he started having trouble keeping down food. He’d throw up sometimes, or complain his guts were stabbing him. His… his nose bled on and off for a few days too. Now… now he’s too weak to get out of bed, he’s losing grip on what’s real he...”

His tongue catches on his teeth as he swallows down his next words.  _ He’s been asking for mom. Wondering where she is, why she hasn’t come back from the hunt yet _ . That part… that part had somehow hurt worst of all. Trying to comfort him, to remind him mom wasn’t there… calm him when he started asking why… why she hadn’t come back. 

“He… he just needs help,” he croaks, throat too tight. “The village healer just keeps suggesting salves and teas. They’re not enough. He was stable for a bit, and now he’s getting worse.”

“Sounds pretty bad alright.” Luka’s madly scribbling, eyes swinging back and forth from page to her cabinets. “Might be enteric fever. It’s not something that just goes away on its own. Hopefully you’re not having any similar symptoms?”

“No…” he swallows. “I… I’ve been looking after him, but I’ve been careful. Hot water and soap to clean anything of his, and any things I can’t clean I’ve burned.”

“Good… that’s good. Seems it hasn’t gotten to you yet, or at least, to the same degree as your parent. I don’t like how long it sounds like he’s had it, but I think with two to three ministrations he could be back to full health.”

Keith lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “R-really? That’s all? Two doses and he’s cured?”

“Mostly cured,” she says, still taking notes. “Bed rest and plenty of broth are still going to have to happen before he can be up and back to his old self. But yes, can probably tackle the worst of it with a few doses of Adella. So, with that said, when will you be bringing him in?”

Keith’s stomach flips. “Bring him in?”

“Well, yeah.” Luka tears off a sheet of numbers and hands it to him. “I’ll do the occasional house call here in Yharnam but if you think I’m going off with you to whatever village you’re from you’re wrong.”

Nausea, thick and viscous is bubbling up Keith’s throat. “But… he’s really sick. The journey’s almost a week to get here. If I go there and come back… that’ll be… that’s twice as much time for-” He chokes, fighting the bile that threatens to wash up the back of his mouth. “You have to be able to do something. Can’t you just… give it to me and show me how to do it?”

“Oh boy, you  _ are _ new.” The minister’s starting to pack things away, moving needles and bottles back to their shelves. “Why do you think everyone comes to Yharnam for blood ministration? Why do you think your little village healer doesn’t do it?”

“I don’t… skill I guess? Yharnam’s the best of the best?” His stomach’s rapidly sinking, guts constricting into a lead ball with every amused glance Luka gives him. 

“You poor thing…” she sighs, tugging a thin, leather bound book from a shelf. “It’s written right here, in Yharnam’s laws.  _ No blood is to leave Yharnam outside a body. _ That means no bottles, no vials, not sachets stuffed into bags or bodily cavities for later. Anyone caught smuggling blood from Yharnam is arrested, plain and simple.”

“But-”

“ _ Everyone… _ ” Luka adds sternly. “So don’t even go thinking about putting it some place they won’t look. They’ll find it, and you’ll do your father a whole load more good returning empty handed to bring him here instead of rotting away in a cell. Leave tonight if you’re worried about time, but don’t expect me to go risking my practice for one little sob story.”

It’s a gut punch that has Keith wobbling in place, arms wrapped around his middle as he tries to take it in.  _ No… no way to bring blood back for his dad. No way to get him the cure, save from risking the trip here with him on his back _ . He… he might be able to do it, might be able to go home and return in less than three weeks, but the journey with his dad, looking after him, trying to keep him warm and safe and clean on the road… it’s not feasible. If she’s right and whatever he has is contagious, there’s no way he’ll be able to bring him back here without contracting it himself, there’s no way he’ll be able to sterilize everything and still make it in time. 

“There’s… there’s no way?” His voice is hollow, a cracked sheet of ice over a puddle absorbed by the earth long ago. “There… there has to be… there has to be something I can do. I can’t have just come all this way to just…” he bites his lip, sting of blood threatening to fall. 

“The most I could do is minister you here and now to help keep you healthy on the way back. Otherwise yes… there’s no other options I can give you.”

Keith settles as low as his morale on the bench. “So that… that’s it then. I can get ministered and hope I have enough time to bring him back to you. That’s the only thing I can do… just… hope it increases my chances. Nothing… nothing that keeps me from having to bring him away from home.”

Luka hesitates, finger winding nervously around the chain about her neck. “Well… that’s as much as  _ I _ can do for you.”

Keith’s head snaps up so fast he can feel the whiplash cracking through his vertebrae. “ _ What?” _

She winces. “Like I said, there’s not really anything  _ I _ can do. A normal minister. I just have the basic bloods and a general mastery. But another minister…” 

His heartbeat’s pounding in his ears like the drums of a hunt. “There’s… there’s someone out there that can help me?”

Luka chews on a nail. “I know someone. She’s an experienced minister, good researcher too. Pioneered a ton of techniques, I’ve heard she found a few vessels too. If… if you’d be willing to offer her something suitable in exchange, she might be able to find a workaround for you.”

“Of course! Anything! Why the hell didn’t you mention this sooner?!”

“Well…” Luka’s eyes flick over to the door. “You came with Shiro, I doubt he’d support the idea of you seeking her out.”

Something hot and unpleasant rustles in Keith’s chest at the thought of Shiro stopping him. “And why not?”

“She’s church affiliated. Been so for years. Pretty sure you can read between the lines on how he’d feel about that.”

She’s right. Keith can already see the hazy outline of Shiro’s face reacting to that idea. If he nearly dropped a spoon at the mention of blood ministration, was already on rocky terms with a minister he considered ‘ _ one of the good ones _ ’, he can only imagine how he’d react to Keith wanting to go to someone associated with the group that seemed to have started Shiro’s whole dislike of the treatment. And as much as he barely knows the man, he can’t help but feel pangs of guilt at the idea of trying to convince him this is what he really needs. His loyalty is to his family, of course, but Shiro’s looked after him his whole time in Yharnam, kept him fed, safe from harm. Done his best to explain the messed up workings of this creepy town and keep Keith’s feelings protected. 

As much as he needs to save his father, he’s not sure he’s strong enough to  _ that _ to do it.

His eyes fall closed, trying to calm his breathing as he convinces himself this is what’s best for all of them. 

“How long would it take?”

“How… long?” He can tell Luka’s frowning, even without seeing her.

“How long would it take to go see this minister and come back? Including anything she might do?”

“I don’t… if she’s not busy, maybe an hour?”

Keith sucks in a breath, palms pressed together in front of his face as if in prayer. “Then… how likely do you think it is that we could go and come back without Shiro finding out?”

Luka’s shuffling stops, the clinic deathly quiet. 

“I’ll see what I can get Romelle to do.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it be getting there guys! sorry for the missed day for posting, I've had a lot of family functions going on that've been eating all my time with prep/cleanup

“So, in any case, the guy comes in here, yelling about heathens and his wife cheating on him with another man. Demands a reading on whether or not he can take the guy in a fight while Luka and I know full well she’s just been seeing another minister to treat their kid. So of course I do the whole smoke and incense and trance stuff and-”

“Romelle,” Shiro groans through a forced smile. “What exactly does this have to do with your new frock?”

“Oh.” The fortuneteller blinks, suddenly looking down at her dress like it’s the first time she’s seen it. “Well, I was getting to that, but if you want the long story short, his wife made it for me after I talked him out challenging Tavo. Idiot would have had his ass handed to him.”

Shiro sneaks another peak at the clinic door. Still closed. 

“Well, I guess that’s a good thing. Other than that, business has been good?”

“More or less…” she hums, swirling her tea and glancing at Shiro’s half-empty cup. “Never the most lucrative business, but these days enough people are nervous about their futures they want some sense of what’s to come. Usually they all come asking about pretty grim things… and as much as I want to give them the answers they seek…”

“Your work’s a lot more vague than they’d like.”

She nods slowly, staring down into the briny remnants of tea and leaves. “Which is why, I’ll admit, it’s nice when you stop by like this. So often when you do show up you’re exhausted or starving and in no mood to talk. But times like these, where we get to catch up, I look forward to them. I hate to say it, but I’m kind of glad that boy needed a minister.”

“Yeah…” Shiro swallows, washing down the dry feeling in his mouth with a gulp of tea. Keith… Keith didn’t deserve to go through all this. Beasts… ministration…  _ hunting… _ There was clearly a reason why he’d never stepped foot inside these walls before, same as the reason why his parents had kept the reality of their past from him. They’d wanted to protect him, keep him from living through the same horrors they had, let him grow up far away from the tainted blood and curse that haunted them all. As much as he wanted Keith to find a cure… save his father… part of him didn’t. What if it didn’t work?

What if… what if it  _ spread? _

He hastily takes another swig, trying to wash the thought from his mind. That… Keith had barely managed to take on a scourge beast, a remnant of someone he’d never known. As capable as he was- Shiro gags on a tea leaf - As… as capable as he was, for all the skill he showed, he wasn’t hardened yet, he hadn’t gone numb to the reality that was the hunt. And if  _ that _ were to happen… He closes his eyes, stomach churning audibly…

_ Keith won’t be able to go through with it.  _

Just as he knows he can’t either. 

A tinkling of glass brings him back, Shiro jumping back from the table as Romelle seems to return from nowhere, her leaving as unannounced as her reappearance. In her hands are a rack and a journal, one lashed with twine, the other filled with several vials of deep red liquid. 

“I know I was trying to keep this away from business, but Luka reminded me we wanted you to help check these.”

Shiro’s stomach does a complicated series of somersaults, some high, some low as he looks at the little labeled vials. He can just make out the names, all scrawled in minute writing, along with dates and times. “Romelle…” he croaks. “I… I mentioned this before, I’m really trying-”

“I know,” she says, smooth hand sliding forwards to squeeze his own scarred battleworn one. “And I know how hard it is for you, especially with her gone. But you and I both know what happens if you keep fighting this for too long, and when it happens, its so much harder for me to hide it from Luka.”

Shiro’s tongue rests thick and dry in his mouth as he can’t keep himself from looking away from the rack of blood samples. “I… I know… but I swore I’d-”

“You swore you’d never do  _ that _ . This is different. If she raises issue with this when she’s back, send her to me and I’ll tell her what it was. Two people, helping each other out. Shiro, you  _ need _ this. I can tell.”

“I…” he bites his lip, pulse picking up as he glances back towards the still closed door. Romelle’s eyes follow his. 

“You’re worried about him finding out, aren’t you?” 

Shiro’s hand stiffens under hers. It’s returned with a second palm joining it. 

“Don’t worry. I don’t think he suspects anything, and Luka just told me they’ll be a while longer. Something about figuring out a safe way to help him get the cure back home.”

“She’s not-”

“ _ No,  _ she’d never make him do anything illegal. If I know her, she’ll be researching any loopholes or alternatives for him. If she can’t find one, that’s where she’ll leave things. He’ll be fine.”

Shiro lets out a breath, one that feels like it’d been held far longer than it should have. “That… that’s good. Glad to know.”

“So with that said…” Romelle pushes the rack towards him, deep lavender eyes boring into his own.  _ Like Keith’s, in a way, _ Shiro notices. Except Keith’s were deeper, the sky just after sunfall. “Please, go through these. Luka’s always anxious about her patients worsening.”

Shiro takes the first one in hand, a deep maroon color labeled a month ago. His stomach does another flip, but this time in anticipation.

* * *

Apparently, Luka’s idea of sneaking out past Shiro involved the building’s basement. At first Keith’d thought it was genius, a secret tunnel that’d lead them out of the house and back onto the streets. 

Except that tunnel led to a grate. And that grate… led to the sewers.

Endless sewers… filled with rats and rot and…

Keith gags, narrowly avoiding stepping in what he can only describe as the most disgusting interpretation of the colour brown. 

“You’re sure…  _ this… _ is the way to her clinic?” he asks, voice nasal and whiny through his pinched off nose. The only thing keeping him from being overwhelmed with stink. 

“Yup,” Luka says, popping the ‘p’. “A lot of us ministers use the sewers to get between each other’s clinics. It’s a little more dangerous these days, but, well… old habits die hard. Supposedly in the past we always did this to keep blood shipments out of the hands of thieves.”

“There were… thieves?”

“Oh yeah, loads of them.” She ducks under a pipe, guiding Keith off and down a passage on the left. “Blood’s a valuable commodity. Back before the city started doing a good job of cracking down on people, there’d be thieves and foreigners coming here non-stop trying to steal our reserves. Kidnappings too. Eventually the church got everything under control and we’re a lot more at peace these days. If anyone comes here like you, looking for ministration, there’s strict rules they have to adhere to. Otherwise the Yharnam guards have full rights to do whatever the hell they want with you.”

“Yeah… I kinda got the idea when you told me there was no way I’d be able to leave with a vial of it. Even…” he screws up his face

“Oh don’t be like that,” Luka snorts. “I wouldn’t have mentioned it if there hadn’t been a decent number of people trying to smuggle the stuff out up their asses. You should have seen the guy they caught back last summer. Had a full flagon of it up there, the guards were surprised he could even fit something that big in him can you-”

“I can,” Keith groans, unclenching his nose for a second only to be hit with a club’s force of stink. “Please, you don’t have to describe it to me.”

“Suit yourself.”

They walk on in silence for some time, Luka pointing them down a new passage every so often. Left. Right. Left. Left. Straight. Slight curve to the right. Keith tries to avoid looking at the sludge that washes past them in the drains, greenish-grey muck with far too many bubbles for his liking. Really… what did Luka feel the need to walk through these pipes? Or any minister really? Sure, blood was valuable, he knew that much. And the technique to minister it… Luka had mentioned it was far harder than just administering a tea or poultice. There was an art to it, one that could lead to disaster if not done properly. But still… how had no minister from Yharnam left and started up their own clinic someplace else? How come Yharnman kept everything under such tight lock and key?

“Luka,” Keith says slowly, the thought coming to him slowly like the great chunky log floating past them. “It’s been bugging me for a while, but… What’s so special about the blood that ministers use?”

The girl pauses, turning back to look at Keith for what feels like the first time in hours. Her brows pull together, but not so much in confusion or anger, but mild surprise. “Huh. I don’t get asked that much. You’re a bit of a weird one, aren’t you?”

“I’m not weird… I…” he stumbles, glaring down at a random brick in his path. “I just… I don’t quite get it. If it’s just a matter of giving someone who’s sick some blood from someone who’s healthy, why can’t ministers travel and go wherever to treat patients? I get that it’s something only people from Yharnam have mastered, but can’t the city make a whole lot more money sending ministers out to treat rich kings and nobles? It doesn’t make much sense if it’s just the people doing it, so then… is it something about the blood used that’s the reason no one else does it?”

Luka sucks in her cheeks, looking Keith up and down. For a second Keith thinks she’s going to tell him off, turn around and walk right back to her clinic and leave him here to find his own way out. But she doesn’t. Instead she laughs, turning heel and continuing to walk on down the sewer. 

“You’re a bright one,” she chuckles, “must locals don’t even question it, and most foreigners are just so happy to have it they’re too scared to ask anything that could make them loose their privilege, but you…” she snorts, swinging around the post of a dilapidated ladder. “You’re different. Maybe it’s because you’ve been hanging around  _ him _ , but I suppose it can’t hurt to tell you. Pretty sure  _ he _ knows anyway, if he was raised and treated by the church.”

The way she won’t even say Shiro’s name has Keith feeling off-kilter. Her whole demeanour actually… it’s just a hair’s breadth off from being weird. Still, no matter how weird she was, Shiro trusted her, so that meant he should be able to trust her too. “So…” he repeats, “there  _ is _ something special about the blood you use?”

“Yep.” Luka leans on a rung of the ladder. “It’s not just blood from some cow or goat, or some bum off the street. It comes straight from the church, from nuns and disciples and the clergy itself. Something about their blood, the purity of it, it’s got healing properties unlike that of anyone else.”

“Magic… blood?”

Luka shrugs. “You’ve probably seen. decent share of what Yharnam has to offer now. Is that really the most questionable thing? Blood theory’s been around for centuries, long before the art of blood ministering became a thing. All Yharnam did was discover a bloodline and a way to cultivate it. Those people, the donors, they never leave the walls of the church. They remain there for safety, looked after from the day they’re born to the day they die. Really… not a bad life at all, having your wellbeing guaranteed and knowing that everything you do, it’s for the benefit of fellow mankind.”

“And that’s… that’s what you use? Some family’s magic blood? Some family the church keeps hidden away somewhere, making sure they keep living on to be able to keep providing blood for treatments?”

“Oh no,” Luka hums, starting up the ladder. “They’re not kept like livestock or prisoners at all. I don’t know much, but they’re pretty much free to do what they want after giving a few years service. And it’s not just one family. If what I’ve heard from other ministers is true, the Choir’s working to see if there’s a way to have other people become donors too. A way to guarantee there’ll be enough blood for everyone that needs it. All for the greater good.”

Keith swallows, watching her petticoats move up the rungs. He steps onto the first one, something prickling at his shoulders, something that has him looking over his shoulders before starting up. 

“The greater good…”

* * *

“Romelle… please.”

“Just three more Shiro. Really, you’re doing so well.”

He groans, picking up the next vial. The third one in the series, an older man with two kids and a wife, ran a butcher shop several streets over from here. Got ministered six months ago and came back every so often for more. He knew that much already, but with this…

Shiro uncorks the tube and takes a sip. 

It hits instantly. The heat, the fizz, and then the imagery, all rushing at him so fast he nearly crunches the tube in his fist. He’s never liked it, this feeling, ever since he’d become like this. Its too much information, too intimate. One second Romelle’s listing off clinical notes and the next he’s  _ them _ , seeing flashes of memory through their eyes, feeling their emotions. 

It’s always only the biggest ones, the most pressing on the person’s mind. He can feel the man’s frustration at low sales lately, feel his bones creak as he lifts the latest sheep onto the chopping block and begins quartering it in earnest, humming happily to himself as he does what he’s best at, slicing and cutting meat. He can see his wife’s face in faint candlelight, her fingers stroking his bearded cheek as he tells her of the troubles at the store and she whispers it will all be okay. It feels real and alien all at once, and then it’s gone, the tang and burn of the blood on his tongue the only thing left. 

It’s been this way for years now, ever since she did this to him, treated him as her experiment and turned him into this. Not quite human, but not beast either. Just…  _ other _ . Something that could sample a person from their blood, something that shouldn’t be. He’s wrong, just as wrong as the beasts that roamed the streets. Except he was still in his right mind. He could stop them, sense them out and hopefully stall the process before it was too late. 

At least, that’s what he hopes, as he feels the telltale tang of musk and goat hit the back of his throat.

Shiro’s eyes sting, throat constricting as he blinks and comes back into himself. Romelle says nothing, instead pushing a fresh mug of tea towards him. He takes it gratefully, washing the final traces of it from his mouth. 

“Bad?” she frowns, taking the mug back and adding more water as he finishes. 

“Not great,” he grunts, still wanting to scrub his tongue to get the last few bits of it off. “He’s definitely… worse off than he was in the first few samples. Not bad, but not quite ok. He’s got that beast taste in there, even if he’s still far from-”

“From that point. Got it. Well… at least there’s that I guess.” She takes down a few notes, gesturing at the final few vials. “We’re almost there, I think there’s only one or two Luka needs you to check out. The rest are all new patients that just started, no need to taste until they’ve been with her for a while.”

Shiro nods, weakly reaching out for another. As much as his body appreciates the blood… practically sings with vitality over the fact he’s being fed, it’s almost too much. There’s too many memories, too much unknown hitting him with every drop that touches his tongue, it’s draining in it’s own way. He’s so used to just being with one person, being by their side so much the memories he tastes may as well be his own, the thoughts and feelings coming to him more as if in conversation than in drops of life. But he’s alone now, working without her for the time being. For now, this is as good as he’ll get. 

He uncorks another, and drinks. 

“So let’s see, we just have Ms. Gunderson and— oh! Shiro! That’s not the right one! It’s—”

But Romelle’s faded away, replaced with a flurry of images. 

A scourge beast, leaping at him. A robber on the trail, trying to stab his middle and make off his purse. A dimly lit clinic, dread and hopelessness washing over him with the words “not possible”.

A bed by a crackling hearth and a man in it, towel pressed against his sweating brow. Shiro can feel his hands shake as the man babbles in front of him, eyes glazed, trying to calm him, cool the fever rushing through his body. 

_ ‘Where’s your ma? She should be here, she always knows what to do. Will fix me up in a jiff, just you see.’ _

Shiro feels the bile wash up his throat, feels his vocal chords strain to form the words.  _ ’Dad… dad… she’s not here. She’s gone. She left for Yharnam years ago… she’s—” _

Shiro gags, spitting blood and acid onto the napkin in front of him. His eyes sting, but not from taste this time, but shock. 

He knows that room. He knows that voice, knows who’s blood he’s tasted, pure and untainted. Blood freer of the curse he tastes on all others, blood with a tiny bubble of hope, rapidly foaming away into the depths of desperation. 

He feels like he could throw up, like he could smash the entire rack of samples to the ground and run screaming into the streets. He shouldn’t… he shouldn’t be tasting this… seeing  _ that… _ It’s not… he shouldn’t be allowed to. There should be no reason why…

“Shiro? Are you okay? Did one of the new samples come out positive?”

He shakes his head, cheeks hollowing in as he sucks the final remnants from his mouth and spits them back into his palm, out of him, where it belongs. 

“Romelle,” he croaks, fighting to keep his voice even. “Why… why did you give me Keith’s blood? He shouldn’t… Luka shouldn’t have this. She wouldn’t take it… not unless—”

Panic seizes Shiro’s chest. Before she can stop him he’s springing from the table, crossing the room in three strides and bolting, almost crashing into the wall as he takes the turn for the hall, Romelle’s voice ringing out behind him. Right now he couldn’t care less, couldn’t care less what she thought, or what Luka thought. He’d trusted her. He’d trusted her to be safe, to never go beyond what was needed. There was no reason for her to draw Keith’s blood, not unless she was planning something. 

The door flies of its hinges as he throws himself into Luka’s room, ready to confront her and take Keith away. He can’t… he can’t let Keith go through with this. Not now. Not since he knows the truth. He has to stop it, before—

Empty. 

The clinic’s deserted, the only life remaining a single candle flickering on the desk. 

Shiro turns to Romelle, the icy chill that’s started in his stomach now setting in to his bones. 

“Romelle,” he says, voice deathly quiet. “Where is he? Where did she take him?”

* * *

Keith swallows, eyes sweeping over the ornately carved door before him. Luka’d stepped back, watching carefully from the staircase. They’d entered this clinic from the basement, a much grander affair than the little hole in the wall Romelle and Luka shared. Compared to that… this was… intimidating. Far more than he’d thought. The doors give off the air of secrecy, as if the minister lurking behind them worked in the shadow of night, weaving blood cures out of thin air and old church families. 

His hand shakes as he takes the large brass knocker and knocks, the great oak door ringing like an ancient wooden bell. 

“Who is it?” A voice behind the wood rings out like the sting of a rasp on the knuckle, sharp and cool. 

“It’s Luka!” the minister calls, standing on tiptoe from where she waits. “I brought someone for you, someone looking to know if there’s a way to carry blood without a bottle.”

The door opens a crack, and Keith catches the gaze of a single golden eye. It sweeps over him like a hawk’s, appraising every inch of his body it can spot. He fights down the urge to step back, standing his ground as this minister takes their taste. 

“Th-the name’s Keith,” he says, forcing himself to look back at that singular eye. “I came to Yharnam looking for blood. I need it to save my family.”

“Save your family, hmmm? Came here on your own then?”

Keith nods, Luka stepping up beside him. “That’s right, your grace. He arrived in Yharnam just the other day.”

The eye takes them both in, swivelling from one to the other, and then it’s gone, the crack of light gone. Keith’s stomach sinks. Even this minister didn't want to help him. Of course they wouldn’t, he wasn’t from here, how the hell could they trust him to take their special blood back to his—”

A heavy chain clatters against the wood and the door is flung open, an older woman with a cascade of white hair staring back at him. 

“Come in dear. Let’s see what we can do for you. The name is Honerva, but if you’d like, you may call me Haggar.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this is a bit late! Went through a few rewrites because I wasn't liking how I'd initially had this chapter laid out (I had a lot of lore/plot threads in mind that I had to decide between to keep this from getting too clunky and ballooning into a 50k monster). In the end I wound up scrapping my initial plan to have Keith and Shiro wind up facing the blood starved beast, this just feels like a more fitting end for them and avoids a whole convoluted scene that didn't really work within this story. Ah well, maybe another time ¯\ _(ツ)_/¯
> 
> EDIT: also HOLY HECK I didn't realize it was Jess's birthday today when I posted this so HAPPY BIRTHDAY I GUESS??

The old minister is gnarled, wisened at the knuckles and eyes like an old tree. Keith’s worried about her at first, how frail she looks, how her bones almost seem to creak with every step she takes as she makes her way over to the doctor’s couch. But there’s a spark there, something firey flickering behind those old eyes. She walks with a slow purpose, steps solid, unshaking, never stopping until she reaches the stool beside the exam bench.

“Come on. Sit,” she says, patting the bench. “I’m not going to bite. Come on boy.”

Keith swallows, glancing over to Luka. 

“Go on,” she whispers, shooing him in. “Locals would be ready to kill to have an audience with her. She’s one of the best we have! She’s grown super selective over the years, barely accepts anyone for treatment these days. I didn’t even know if she’d see you but if she is  _ don’t waste this! _ ”

“Luka.” Honerva’s eyes snap up from the ornate book she’s studying. “Please, leave us be. I’ll summon you when they time comes.”

“B-but… he’s my patient! Can’t I-” 

The old minister gives her a look. Keith barely catches sight of it, but even he can feel the heat burning in it. “Do you not trust me? Me? The one who provided the books that taught you all you know?”

Luka’s shoulders cave in, looking longingly from Keith to Honerva. “Of… of course I do... my grace. I will… I’ll retire to your study.”

“I will retrieve you when the time comes.”

She nods, backing slowly out of the room. Keith can just catch her lips mouthing the words  _ ‘good luck’ _ before the door is closed, the latch falling back into place. 

It’s just him an Honerva now. The old healer continues to pour over her book, barely paying him any notice as her forefinger slides over loops of scrawling text. 

“Well, are you going to sit down?” She glances up at him, midway through flipping a page. 

“Uh…” he stutters. “Yeah... I guess.”

Keith comes to her side, gingerly brushing past her as he makes to sit on the edge of the exam bed. She reminds him of the old widowed auntie in his village, a thistle with a thimble around the stem. Those who knew to navigate around her would stay unstuck… but anyone who made so much as a wrong move… well, Keith got good at dodging pinches pretty fast. Best to treat her the same way too, and wait patiently until she makes the first move. 

“So,” she says after a moment. “You’re not from here, are you?”

“No.” Simple and direct, that’s the way to go. “I’m from Aldershire. North of here.”

She grunts, thumbing through more pages. “And your family. Where are they.”

“Same place.” No point in mentioning his mother. 

“And you were born there?””

Keith stalls. “I… I’m pretty sure. If I wasn’t, we moved there before I could remember anything else.”

Honerva makes another grunt and backtracks in her tome. “Well, that’s not ideal, but it should do.”

“It… should do?” He tries to lean over, to catch a glance at the tiny, scribbled writings on the page. “Does… does it make a difference?”

The book snaps shut so quickly it feels like he could have lost his nose if he was closer. Honerva gives him a warning glare. “If I tell you the short answer is yes, will you be still?”

Keith averts his eyes. “Yes. I was just-”

“Just about to go snooping?”

“No! I was just-” He trails off, Honerva giving him another look. “I… I’m sorry, alright? I’m just trying not to waste time. I need to get back as soon as I can.”

“And why’s that?”

He blinks up at her. “I… I thought I told you. I have to get home and save my family.”

“Yes, you did say that. But that really isn’t saying anything. ‘Save my family’... it could mean anything. Save them from debt, from enemies, from each other. Unless you become more specific, well...” she makes to sit up.

“Wait!” Keith nearly jumps off the bench. Honerva gives him a questioning stare. “I… I’ll tell you. I just… I didn’t think you’d be interested in knowing details.”

“If I don’t, then how can I do my work?”

“Right.” Keith swallows, hands fidgeting nervously in his lap. “Then… then I guess I can describe the sickness then. The one my father has.”

He tells her everything. About the first day his father had needed to lie down before dusk. About the sweats, the fever, the delusions. The treatments he’d tried and the ones that had failed. The advice he’d been given and the marks that had appeared on his dad’s body. He even told her what Luka had told him, the rules about transporting blood and the unlikelihood of surviving the journey back for treatment. He almost goes as so far to tell her how hopeless it all feels, how close he is to breaking down and retreating home empty handed. Of the fear of coming back to a body that’s already grown cold in his absence. And throughout she listens. She nods in the right places, and waits for him to continue in others, rarely stopping him except to clarify here and there. 

“So… so basically… you’re my last hope,” he says, some several minutes later. His throat’s raw, but it feels good, putting it all out there to her. If Luka’s right, if anyone can help him, its her. “So… I’m begging you, if you know of any way to help him, please… I’ll do anything.”

Honerva’s grown silent. Her quill, that had been scratching notes has long grown still. She’s not so much looking at him, so much as through him, to a place inside his body, as if trying to inspect the organs that made him tick. After a long moment, she finally uncrosses her legs and speaks. 

“Your father is your last remaining relative, is he not?”

Keith can only nod. Honerva hums, a faint smile gracing her lips. 

“Well then… I suppose there is no point in wasting time. Lie down.”

“Lie… down?” Keith asks, but he’s already doing as she says, leaning back against the white sheet and soft padding of the bench. “Does that… that mean you’ll help me?”

“I’m going to see what’s possible.” She’s suddenly up and about, moving around at a blistering pace that has Keith’s head spinning. She… she’d been so frail before. Now she was moving with the speed of someone in their prime, not an old and wizened woman. Bottles are grabbed from cabinets, beakers and vials poured in a flurry of motions Keith’s eye can barely track them. Strange labels pass under her fingers, dips and dashes of a dozen different solutions are added into beakers. It’s so intricate Keith has to prop himself up on an elbow to watch, Honerva practically dancing around her ingredients. 

He’s almost sad when it ends. The old minister’s arms fall to her sides, the symphony that was the tinkle of glass on glass gone. When she turns to face him once more, it’s with a small vial reddish, translucent liquid, like wine diluted with water.

“Is… is that the cure?” he asks as she comes closer. It doesn’t look like blood. Far from it. It could be currant juice for all he knew, except for the smell. Iron. Hot iron and salt. The smell of battle. Of the hunt. 

Honerva doesn’t say anything, only coaxes him to lie back with a gentle push to his chest. Keith watches as she swirls the vial, and the liquid  _ changes _ before Keith’s eyes, going deep red for a second before turning almost clear the more it spins, until it’s practically crystal. The iron smell disappears, leaving only the smell of dew and damp stone. A smile curls her wrinkled lips as she slows, the colour slowly returning to the liquid as it stills. 

“A good batch, if I do say so myself. One of my finest.”

Keith feels his heart swell. Her finest batch. He has no idea what she’s done, or what exactly she did to that…  _ blood? _ in the vial that makes it so special, but he’s already accepted monsters and blood plagues. What was a miracle to go with all that horror?

“So… do you have a plan for how I can get it to him? Luka said-”

“I’m sure Luka’s said many things,” Honerva hushes, fiddling with something at the side of the bench. “Just as I’m sure no fool knows what they truly are. You have no need to worry now, I will take care of everything. All you have to do is lay back and relax.”

Keith frowns as she walks around to the other side of the table, still rummaging for something in the drawers underneath him. “I appreciate the comforting, but if its all the same to you I’d like to get going as soon as I can. I’m not going to get the cure back to my father just by staying here.”

“No, I suppose you’re not.” Honerva’s eyelids flick up in lazy excitement as she seems to find what she’s looking for. “But nothing was ever improved by rushing now, was it? Be a good boy and just relax for a few more moments. You’ll be with your father soon enough.”

Something catches the candlelight, something glass and metal, long stripes of light reflecting of it’s empty surface. A syringe. 

Keith feels a buzz of nerves at the base of his spine as Honerva slips the needle into the vial and retracts the plunger. Something’s not right.

He lies back down, trying to feign innocence as his eyes scan the room for exits or weapons. “What… what did you say the plan was for me to take the cure back with me was again? I’m all for whatever you suggest, I’d just ideally like to know if it’s going to take my chastity ahead of time.”

“Oh don’t worry,” Honerva chuckles, watching as the wine-coloured liquid slowly fills the barrel. “Your chastity will remain intact. That I promise you.”

Keith watches as she retracts the syringe from the vial, slowly flicking bubbles out from the solution. The bad feeling is creeping throughout his body now, preparing every nerve and muscle to move as soon as the moment comes.

“And it’s not… I don’t know… going to have any lasting effects if I carry it with me?”

“That, I  _ can’t _ promise you. But you won’t be any worse off than you are now.”

Keith’s eyes narrow at her. “I’d really appreciate it if you could elaborate a bit further. Just what kind of side effects are we talking about?”

“Oh, not much… just the usual blood-related ones. Increased stamina, accelerated healing abilities, general immunity to most common diseases...” The minister hums, her eyes flashing almost fire-white for a second as a fat pearl of liquid forms at the tip of the needle. “And of course the risk of beastdom. Good and bad always come together, don’t they?”

“ _ What?!” _

Honerva smiles sweetly, needle catching the light. “Oh… you didn’t know?””

Keith moves the second she does. He kicks out, swinging a leg towards her as she brandishes the syringe towards him, causing her to jump back. He tries to twist around, tumble off the side of the bed and towards the broom in the corner of the room, a more than sufficient weapon to held fend this crazy woman off, but he stops, wrist bolted into place. His neck cracks as he spins over to look. 

_ Belts _ . One on each arm. He hadn’t even noticed them being fastened around him as she’d looked for the syringe, hadn’t even felt the leather cutting into his skin until-

Honverva gives him a crooked smile, right leg tensing where it rests. A pedal, ropes twisting out of the front and out beneath him. Keith sits up, anger bubbling in his gut.

“You tricked me.”

“I prefer misled, but yes,” she grins, checking the syringe once more. “You were so willing to go along with it, I almost had you. If I’d known you’d be such a little handful I would have belted your legs as well. Such a shame…”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure it’s no shame to  _ you _ .” He spits at her, relishing the way her mouth twists into a scowl. “Taking advantage of someone who’s desperate. Just what in the hell are you trying to do to me anyway? Turn me into one of your blood cows for your church? Lock me up so you can drain me dry after you make me into some kind of sick medicine factory?”

Honerva chuckles as Keith tries to yank his wrist free of his bindings. “So that foolish girl decided to tell you that much… But even with all her tracking and experimenting she wouldn’t tell you the ways blood rejects the unpure.”

Keith’s stomach lurches, anger bubbling in his gut. “You… you  _ know  _ you’re causing the plague? And you  _ let _ it happen?” He yanks again, the leather cutting into his wrists. 

“Oh child,” she coos, “you know nothing.  _ Are _ nothing. You’re nothing more than a little mouse who’s wandered far from home. You can’t even comprehend the history of Yharnam… the roots of the church… the sanctity of our quest. You’re nothing but another link in the chain, a small, insignificant branch to test the future of our race.” She raises the syringe, eyes flashing dangerously. “Be a good boy and accept your place.”

“ _ NO! _ ” Keith lashes out, kicking, loosening his boot and flinging it at her with all he has. He relishes the way her expression turns into a snarl, the ugly hiss she makes as she dodges back and the satisfying thud of leather across her face. 

“ _ You little-” _

Shoulders screaming in protest, Keith flips himself over on the bed, summersaulting backwards and onto the floor, the bench now serving as a shield between him and her. “I’m not going to be your lab rat,” he growls. “And I’m not letting you keep me here. I’m getting out, and when I do, when I-”

Keith’s threat is blown out, overpowered by the crash of wood on tile and splintering oak. Honerva cowers, Keith throwing himself as much as he can behind the bench as bits of shrapnel fly through the air. There’s screaming from downstairs, unearthly shrieks and bits of rubble falling from the hole that was once a door. For a second, everything is terrifyingly still, and then-

“ _ YOU! _ ”

The venom in that voice nearly chokes Keith out. Dark. Furious. Familiar. 

Slowly, he looks over the rubble-strewn table. 

Shiro stands in the ruined doorframe, chest heaving, body littered with cuts and scrapes. His eyes flash like lightning on moonless nights, his gauntlet crackling with unearthly energy. He’s terrifying, wild, and yet Keith can’t suppress the swell of hope the sight of him brings. 

Honerva rises from where she’d fallen, plucking splinters and dust from her hair and robes. “So…” she says with all the love for a crippled inscent. “After all these years, you’re still here. Alive. Unturned.” She spits at Shiro’s feet, slowly backing away as he advances. “I’d be proud if you hadn’t betrayed the hand that saved you.”

“You didn’t save me.”

Honerva sneers. “I beg to differ. Without me, you’d be nothing. Dead. But because of me? You’re the closest thing to paleblood we’ve made in centuries.  _ A legend. _ Only to be squandered… lost to the streets. But now… now I can take you back.  _ Kuron. _ ”

“That’s not my name!” Shiro’s arm crackles as he draws sword from scabbard –  _ his _ sword, Keith realizes – and thrusts it in her face. Honerva doesn’t so much as flinch. “And I’m not your… your  _ possession  _ either! Just like  _ he _ isn’t yours to toy with! Release him, and maybe… maybe I’ll spare you from what I’ve dreamed of doing for so long.”

Laughter breaks from Honerva’s lips, making both Keith and Shiro flinch. Smoothly, she pushes the blade tip away from her throat. 

“You say that, and yet you forget. You forget the one who made you, the one who raised you…” her eyes glint with dark intent, red marks slowly manifesting on her face. “You forget the one who made your fears.” 

“Shiro, watch out!”

Keith makes to leap at her, to knock the needle from her hands, but he’s yanked back, held in place by the bindings that still grip his wrists. Shiro’s eyes swivel to him, distracted, flying wide as he sees the red chaffing around his binds, and Honerva makes her move. Grabbing the blade and twisting, she flings it from Shiro’s grip, a leg jutting out from her white robes to wind him. He stumbles back, clutching his middle to the dull clang of steel on stone. 

Honerva’s eyes have taken on a maniacal, feral gleam to them as she advances, blood dripping unnoticed from her sliced palm. Keith thrashes against his bindings, wrists rubbing raw as he tries to free one, to squeeze and slide an inch… then a finger...  _ He has to… Shiro needs to... _

She kicks Shiro again, leg sweeping high, catching Shiro in the jaw as he struggles to recover. Unlike with the beasts, here, with her, his movements are sluggish. Shakey. It puts Keith on edge, makes him tug as his right wrist until he swears blood is smearing in to the leather. She has power over him he can’t even begin to understand.

“That’s it,” Honerva thrums, advancing on the hunter struggling to his feet. “Show me that weak little boy you’ve always been.”

To Keith’s rasping cry, she drives the needle into her arm. 

The reaction is immediate. Honerva’s body convulses, syringe falling from her hand and shattering on the floor. Her greying hair pales, turning snow white, then ghostly… as if lit from within. He skin sallows, wrinkles deepening, hands taking on a barklike appearance as she jerks and spasms where she stands. Shiro stumbles back, mouth wide in silent scream as she slowly stills, head bowed low. Then, with a shriek far from human, she comes to life. 

Keith’s hand jerks free at the sight of her. Where her eyes used to be are endless, glowing voids, the marks on her face glistening like fresh tears of blood. He hair rises behind her, glowing with dull-blue light, her hands outstretched like a demon on the cross. It’s demonic. It’s alien. 

It’s beastly… and it has Keith at a loss for everything. 

Honerva takes in a slow, savouring breath, glowing eyes growing dim for a second before returning to pierce through Shiro. “ _ How about this _ ?” Her voice is echoey, disjointed, like a thousand ghost working to possess one voice box. “ _ Doesn’t this take you back Kuron? Back to the Orphanage. To the gardens. To all those that came before you? _ ”

Nothing but a pained whimper leaves the hunter on the floor.

“ _ Almost like then, except, well…” _ she flexes her fingers, nails tapered to wicked points, “ _ except no failures remain.” _

A choke and a bang resound through the clinic. 

Smoke leeches from the barrel of Shiro’s pistol, a dark gaping hole marring Honerva’s shoulder. Tears streak down Shiro’s face. 

“You… you  _ bitch! _ We were children! We trusted you, and you used us! One by one, until we were of no use to you anymore! I…” Shiro’s hand shakes as he raises the gun and pulls the trigger once more. Bits of hair and flesh rip from the minister’s other shoulder, the scraps spiraling like severed tentacles to the floor. “I’ll never forgive you! You killed them! You killed them all! And now… now I have to-”

“ _ No. _ ” The minister’s hair and eyes glow ghastly blue. “ _ You do not have to do anything, other than submit. _ ”

Light crackles in her hair, the smell of singed fabric filling the air. Her smile turns evil, mocking, like a jackolantern. 

Shiro barely dodges the lighting that leaves her temples. He manages a roll, aiming his pistol once more, trying to find a shot but has to leap again, another surge of light streaming towards him before he can take the shot. He tries again, sprinting sideways as he fires another, this one glancing harmlessly off the cabinets behind him. Two more follow with quick succession, landing in her neck and arm. They’re both shrugged off like flea bites, her neck cracking as she twists it around to follow her prey. 

“Come now Kuron… nothing to be fearful of.”

Shiro lets loose another shot, this one grazing the flesh of her cheek and splattering pink-grey bits of skin into the writhing mass behind her. She growls, another bolt hurting towards him, and this time Shiro leaps, catching and rolling over the bed Keith’s still tethered to.

“Shiro…” he starts, but Shiro’s already fumbling with the final strap that holds him hostage.

“No time. Later,” he growls, fingers fumbling with the complex loops and buckles holding Keith’s arm. “We need to get out of here.” He draws back, shooting at Honerva once more. Keith can hear the angry hiss of it finding its mark. 

“Avoid her long range attacks, and don’t let those tentacles grab you. It’ll…” Shiro bites his lip, pointing his pistol at Keith’s bindings and cocking his gun. His entire arm is shaking, pupils constricted like a cornered animal. Keith’s never seen him like this, it terrifies him. And yet it strengthens the heat inside him. 

With his free hand, he steadies Shiro’s. “I get it. We’ll get out of this.”

The gun goes off, just as Keith’s eyes go blind with flashing light. 

He feels his back strike hard wall, feels splinters cut and embed themselves into him. He lands in a heap, crumpled, dazed, ears ringing as he struggles for stability. He can feel the hot welling of blood on his face and hands, the sharp pain of something that might be a wound in his side. He moans, rolling over, and feels the sting of cool steel against his shin. 

Vision blurry, will the only thing forcing his eyes open, Keith struggles to push himself up. 

The bench is destroyed, a smoking scorch mark the only sign it ever existed. Bits of wood and glass, pieces of medical equipment lay scattered about, a pair of surgical scissors embedded in the floor some six inches from his hand. The fresh wound in his leg still stings, the culprit, his father’s sword marked with his own blood. He swears one of his ribs is cracked, maybe even broken, but none of that matters now. 

None of it matters, because she has Shiro. 

Struggling in her grip, his six foot frame dangles off the floor, bound and suspended with the alien appendages that exit her brain. One gnarled, orcish hand is clutched around his throat, choking the breath from him as Keith’s rooted to the spot. The mins- no… the  _ witch _ holds a scalpel in the other, and with a haunting, victorious laugh, she draws it across Shiro’s cheek. 

“I’ve wondered for years now… the reason you never succumbed. The reason you never manifested like the others. For over a decade now I thought it was just delayed, that you turned and were slaughtered after your escape, but  _ this _ …” She slices through Shiro’s cheek, the man wheezing and struggling in her grip. “ _ This… is remarkable. Precious.  _ I’ll be sure to save every last drop.”

Shiro grunts, arms and legs swinging, trying to lash out at her, but she only laughs. Another flash of her lighting like attack ricochets through his body, making him convulse and scream in her grip, forcing more and more air from his dying lungs, making it all the more easy for her to poke and slice at his exposed skin. 

He. He has to do something. Keith forces himself to move, to stand, to grip his sword, but he buckles. As soon as weight hits his right knee, he tumbles back to the ground.  _ He’s more injured than he’d thought.  _ He can barely prop himself up on one knee, let alone charge the ten steps that remain between him and Shiro. Him and the man who’d helped him, saved him time and time again in Yharnam. Him and the monster slowly cutting him to ribbons. 

Keith’s grip tightens around his hilt, the sting of sweat and blood mixing in with the water of his eyes. Everything… everything in his life had been one loss after another. He’d lost the friendship of his peers. The respect of his superiors. He’s already lost his mother. He’s about to lose his father. 

He’s not about to lose another. 

The blade in his hand burns white hot, the fire in his stomach reaching a flash point. He feels sick, almost nauseous, but there’s something else. Something powerful, radiating through him, giving him the strength to endure. 

In a flash, the sword in his hand’s transformed, two ends extending from his fix like two great metal wings. With another lurch of light and energy, he feels something manifest in his other palm, a bolt slip itself between fingers that move with knowing precision. Keith finds himself drawing tight, arms extending, chest straining to hold steady as he stares down the woman who’d tried to torture him. The woman who’d tortured Shiro, all those years ago. 

He releases, the cool tickle of silver slipping past his cheek. 

She never even saw it coming. 

The silver arrow pierces her in the chest, dead center, right between the shoulder blades. She shrieks, Shiro falling to the floor, her hands groping at her breast as she spins to face him. 

“ _ YOU!! _ ” She roars, bright red seeping from the center of her robes. “ _ YOU!! You little peasant! How dare you! How dare–” _ her eyes go wide, pupiless sockets fixed on the bowblade still poised in his hand. “ _ How… how can you. Where did you… _ ” she utters, interrupted by a bubble of blood spilling from her lips. She cups her mouth, voice turning piercing, painful as she stares at the bright red stain that matches the one steadily flowering from her heart. 

“ _ No… it can’t… the transfusion worked. I was kin… I was ascended. I… I…” _

Body trembling, muscles screaming, Keith lets loose another bolt. 

This time… this time the witch falls still. One final choke of blood, one final flash of those glowing eyes, and Honerva falls to the clinic floor. 

Only when her body lies fully still, tentacles no longer twitching, does Keith allow himself to drop his blade. It falls to the floor, shifting back as Keith forces himself to crawl across. His leg stings, his body aches, but he has to… he has to…

Keith presses two fingers to Shiro’s neck, eyes raking over him as he looks for a pulse. Deep gashes cover his cheeks and brow, dark bruises decorate his neck, but there’s a steady thrumming against his fore and middle fingers, just as there’s a weak, exhausted smile on his face. Remarkably, no blood seeps from his wounds, only what seems like sweat and tears pooling in the crevices of his face. 

“You did it…” His voice is horse, barely above a whisper. His gauntleted hand reaches up, stroking dried blood and dust from Keith’s cheek. “You activated your blade. You saved me… you… saved both of us.”

“Y-yeah…” Keith croaks, letting his fingers trail over the dark welts on Shiro’s neck. “I couldn’t just let you die. She had to… had to...” 

The gravity of what he’d just done hits him. He hasn’t just fought,  _ he’s killed. _

“Shhh…” A heavy hand wraps around him. Shiro pulls him down to his breast, squeezing him so hard Keith can’t breathe. Two strong arms, wrapped around him, protecting him. “You did the right thing Keith. She wasn’t human… she’s  _ never  _ been human. A human wouldn’t do everything that she’s done, hurt people the way she did… She…”

Keith nods into the crook of Shiro’s neck. “She’s the reason you left the church. Why you hate ministration.” 

Shiro stiffens against him, grip slipping from Keith’s shoulder. “H-how…”

“I… I was told. At least, bits and pieces. The rest I put together.”

“Luka…” Shiro mumbles, flopping back against the tiled floor. “Makes sense, she’s as much of a gossip as Romelle. So that means… that means you know everything, don’t you? Everything about me. What she turned me into, what I have to do to survive now.”

Keith sits up, blinking down at Shiro’s marred face. “What you turned into? I thought she just cured you, that whatever she did to do that traumatized you. Aren’t you…” his eyes rake over Shiro’s body, over the cuts and marks free of blood. Cuts that should, by all means, be stained red, dripping steadily, flooding his face. 

Gingerly, Keith reaches down to brush a gash through Shiro’s brow. Hot, clear liquid smears across his thumb. Shiro grimaces. 

“I’m Paleblood Keith. I’m an experiment. Something not quite human. I don’t age normally, I don’t heal normally. I don’t eat normally… I…” He bites his lip, head clunking against the floor as he looks skyward, eyes glistening. “I’m not a beast, but I’m not human either. I’m… I’m other. I have to drink blood, I can taste memories… I…”

“But you’re still good…” Keith’s voice shakes as he says it. A voice somewhere in his head is screaming at him to run, to get as far away as possible from the monster Shiro admits to being. But the rest of him, his body, his heart, holds him firm where he kneels. Shiro… from the moment he’d met him, he’d been nothing but kind. Distant at first, almost icy at their first encounter, but now he sees it for what it was. A front. A way of keeping him at arm’s length, safe from harm. And when Keith had stuck by him, come to rely on him, he’d resolved to keep on giving, even against his own wits. He’d protected Keith throughout all of this, just like he’d protected the people of Yharnam, thanklessly, without expectation of reward or fanfare. A phantom, a spectre watching over, ensuring peace wherever he could. 

Shiro’s lips part in protest, but Keith silences them with a press of a finger.

“You saved me Shiro, more than once. You took me in, fed me, looked after me, when no one else would. You helped me follow through with things against your principles, all because you knew it mattered to me. You found me here, despite all odds, faced down the woman who tortured you years ago. How is that not good? How can you not call yourself human?”

The hunter’s brow creases. “I… but I’m…”

Keith pulls him up by his collar, until they’re face to face, eye to eye. “You might not be able to see it, but I can. You’re better, more flawed, more human than almost anyone else I’ve ever known. And if you can’t accept that, maybe I need to show you some other way.”

Gingerly, he closes the gap between them.

Shiro’s lips are warm against his, soft. Tangy like tears and sweet like rain, even through the streaks of dust and paleblood bathing his face. He doesn’t shirk away, doesn’t resist, just sinks in slowly, leaning in ever so slightly until he’s kissing back as much as Keith is kissing him. 

When they part, it’s to Shiro’s eyes wide and sparkling like the cosmos. 

“Keith…”

The two of them flush, both looking away as soon as the moment passes. Keith can feel his ears heating, taste the remnants of Shiro on his tongue and he nervously licks his lips, the smell or oranges and cinnamon flooding his senses. 

And then suddenly he’s not in the clinic. He’s not kneeling over Shiro, he’s not covered in cuts and scrapes. He’s somewhere under a bridge, surrounded by bushes, sitting in front of a fire across from someone else. 

Someone with long, reddish-black hair. Someone dressed in black and a feather trimmed cloak, someone with a blood-red broach around her neck. 

_ Mom… _ it catches in Keith’s throat, the word refusing to leave him, his body unable to move, even as he wills it to. It’s like it isn’t his own, like he’s hostage in it, and as if in response, his lips begin to move for him, speaking words that don’t come from his voice. 

“Krolia… please… you know I can’t do it. What would happen to the succession?” Shiro’s voice, hollow and scared leaves Keith’s throat. 

She looks at him – at Shiro – weary and worn, but with that same strength Keith still dimly remembers from his fragmented memories of her. Had she always looked so tired? So battleworn?

“I know,” she says, and it’s only the body Keith inhabits that keeps him from bursting into tears at the sound of her voice. “And that’s why I’m only asking for now, for the time being. There must always be a Hunter of Hunters in Yharnam, and if I’m to return to them…” she clutches the broach at her breast, a dull red glow emanating from her fingers, “I cannot do it without your help. Please Shiro. This is all I ask of you. For a season, take up my mantle. Patrol the streets. I just want to see my son and husband once. Now, before I risk losing them.”

Keith feels his voicebox move around the lump lodged in his throat. “I… I understand. Just… promise me you’ll be back. Promise me, once you’ve saved him, you won’t disappear forever.”

His mother reaches forwards, he hand cupping his cheek. He can see tears brimming in her eyes as she strokes away his own. “I promise. I promise I won’t forget my family here, as much as I won’t forget my family there. I’ll be back.”

Keith wants to reach forwards, touch her, hug her, but her image fades. Her smell, the heat of the fire dissipates, the memory receding as quickly as it came. He comes back into himself, into the destroyed clinic, tears streaming down his cheeks, Shiro’s hands clutching his face. 

“Keith! Keith! Are you alright? Did something happen? Did you–”

“I… I saw her,” he croaks, his own voice foreign on his tongue. “I saw my mom.”

Shiro freezes, gaze piercing into him. 

“Did… did you…”

“I… I was you…” he touches a hand to his lips, feeling the lasting dregs of wetness from his kiss with Shiro on them. “I was there… when she asked you to let her go. I was…”

“It works both ways…” Shiro wheezes, hand going to his own mouth as well. “It works both ways… you just…”

Keith nods, fresh tears welling up and falling to Shiro’s chest. “I… I saw. All this time, she’s been here. Been here with you. She never forgot us, never abandoned us. She…” he swallows, meeting Shiro’s chest as he rises to comfort him. 

“She loved you,” he whispers. “I know she did Keith. I saw every memory she had with you, ever happy moment with you and your father. She missed you every day. Wished she could see you, just as much as she wished she didn’t have to leave to protect you. I just… I didn’t realize it was you until today.”

“H-”

“Luka…” Shiro sniffs, stroking Keith’s back. “The blood she took from you… I… I tasted it. On accident. Your father… he was the piece that finally made it all click.”

“Dad…” he breathes, trying to pull himself from Shiro’s embrace. “Dad… he’s still sick. I have to get back to him. I have to find a cure I have to-”

Shiro silences him, burrowing him deeper into the crook of his shoulder. “It’s alright Keith. She has him. When she went, she took some with him. My blood. If what the church wanted me to be is what I am, it should be as effective as anything you can gather yourself.”

“Shiro…” Keith buries his face into the meat of his neck, fingers clutching onto him for dear life. Three days ago… Three days ago, he’d had no mother, a dying father, and a pipe dream. Now… now he had hope. Hope his mother would find him again. Hope his father would fully recover. Hope that maybe, just maybe, his family might just grow that much larger. 

“If you want to go to them, I understand.” Shiro strokes his back, his fingers loosely tumbling through Keith’s hair. “If you hurry, you might still find her there, with him. You can be together again.”

_ Together _ . The very thought has Keith’s six-year-old heart panging with longing, a broken home patched and mended. There was a chance… a chance that he could see them both together, see his parents laughing together in the same room, see them hugging, see them kiss beside the warmth of the hearth. At least, until she had to return here. 

_ Or…  _ Keith’s fingers dig into Shiro’s jacket. Or… there was the other option. One that, the more he thought of it, the more right it feels. 

“No…” he says slowly, Shiro shifting against him. “No… I’m staying… I’m staying with you. Mom… Dad… they kept me from Yharnam because they didn’t want me to know the truth. But now I do. There’s no need for them to keep me from it, to hide it from me anymore. I can stay with you, wait here for her to return and maybe… just… maybe…” he swallows, drafts of letters already racing through his head. _Would his dad want to return to Yharnam after all these years?_ _Would he come back to the fight, if it meant he could be with both his wife and son together?_ “Maybe we can become a full family again.”

“Keith…” Shiro pulls back, tears now tracking down his face. “Keith… are you sure? Your mom...”

“Is coming back. You said it as much yourself.” He gently bumps Shiro in the face, wiping back the tears before rubbing at his own. “If I leave now I might miss her, but here with you… I know I won’t. I’m staying. I’m staying with you. And then after, when she’s back… we’ll… we’ll see what happens, alright?”

Shiro nods, gently pushing Keith’s bangs behind his ears. “If that’s what you want. I’ll stay by your side as long as you’ll have me.”

Keith does the same, carefully cupping Shiro’s cheek. “Same here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so when I read all the details behind Iosefka's lore I just knew it was the right way to go with Shiro and Haggar and the final confrontation. Shiro narrowly avoided becoming a celestial mob member, whether due to his own will or something to do with with all the concoctions Haggar pumped him full of (: Whether or not it fully fits with Bloodborne canon or not, I like the idea of Shiro both rejecting and achieving Kin in a way, and it's his rejection and will to stay who he is that has the blood accept him. Idk, just something I was going for.
> 
> In any case, Merry Christmas and Happy New Years Jess! Thanks for the wonderful prompt and exposing me to all the cool lore that Bloodborne has to offer. Hope this fic is something like what you were hoping for and hope you have a great 2020!


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